Diary, February 2015 (continued)

RIMG0020

On some of the days last week I felt pretty awful. This week I feel so much better. I took up a bit of walking again. To be able to go for walks feels so very good!

Since yesterday I have a major problem with my camera. Last week and yesterday I could still take a few photos. However after taking some pictures the camera would not close any more. Some mechanism seems to be broken. I have no idea how this can be fixed. My guess is, getting the old camera fixed would probably cost nearly as much as buying a new one. What a pity!

When I started walking yesterday, I saw this along the way!
When I started walking yesterday, I saw this along the way!

RIMG0023

RIMG0024

How did this stuff get there?
How did this stuff get there, I wonder.

Walking on I took a few more pictures of some bush things growing on the other side of the footpath.

RIMG0026

RIMG0027 (2)

RIMG0027

The following pictures are from Monday last week. We left out car at the service centre in Warrawong at 8,30 in the morning. Our movie was to start at 10 am. This meant, we had time for a cup of coffee. Rather than having our coffee in the Shopping Centre, we preferred to sit outside. The only cafe in Warrawong where you can sit outside is the MCCafe, which luckily provides excellent coffee.

RIMG0017

RIMG0019

Ray McGovern Interview: The CIA and Propaganda vs. Reality on Ukraine

  1. Ray McGovern
  2. Raymond McGovern is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President’s Daily Brief. Wikipedia
  4. Born: August 25, 1939 (age 75), The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States
  5. Education: Georgetown University, Harvard Business School, Fordham University

 

In my opinion this video is well worth watching!

SPIEGEL Interview with Leon Panetta

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/former-us-defense-secretary-leon-panetta-discusses-putin-crisis-a-1018325.html

Leon Panetta, 76, served under former US President Bill Clinton as White House chief of staff. He later served as defense secretary and the head of the CIA under President Barack Obama. He retired during the spring of 2013 and Penguin Press published his memoir, “Worthy Fights,” in October 2014.

Debaltseve

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/minsk-deal-represents-and-fragile-opportunity-for-peace-in-ukraine-a-1018326.html

Chancellor Angela Merkel has often been accused of hesitancy. But in Minsk this week, she committed herself to helping find a way to quiet the weapons in Ukraine. The result was a cease-fire. But it is fragile and may ultimately be disadvantageous for Ukraine.

The problem has four syllables: Debaltseve. German Chancellor Angela Merkel can now pronounce it without difficulties, as can French President François Hollande. Debaltseve proved to be one of the thorniest issues during the negotiations in Minsk on Wednesday night and into Thursday. Indeed, the talks almost completely collapsed because of Debaltseve. Ultimately, Debaltseve may end up torpedoing the deal that was worked out in the end.

Debaltseve is a small town in eastern Ukraine, held by 6,000 government troops, or perhaps 8,000. Nobody wants to say for sure. It is the heart of an army that can only put 30,000 soldiers into the field, a weak heart. Until Sunday of last week, that heart was largely encircled by pro-Russian separatists and the troops could only be supplied by way of highway M03. Then, Monday came.
Separatist fighters began advancing across snowy fields towards the village of Lohvynove, a tiny settlement of 30 houses hugging the M03. The separatists stormed an army checkpoint and killed a few officers. They then dug in — and the heart of the Ukrainian army was surrounded.

The situation in Debaltseve plunged the Ukrainian army into a desperate, almost hopeless, position, as the negotiators in Minsk well knew. Indeed, it was the reason the talks were so urgently necessary. Debaltseve was one of the reasons Merkel and Hollande launched their most recent diplomatic offensive nine days ago. The other reason was the American discussion over the delivery of weapons to the struggling Ukrainian army.

Debaltseve and the weapons debate had pushed Europe to the brink of a dangerous escalation — and the fears of a broader war were growing rapidly. A well-armed proxy war between Russia and the West in Ukraine was becoming a very real possibility. A conflict which began with the failure of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and the protests on Maidan Square in Kiev, and one which escalated with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of the Crimea Peninsula, has long since become the most dangerous stand-off Europe has seen in several decades. It is possible that it could ultimately involve the US and Russia facing each other across a line of demarcation.

Reflections on the past Week

Catterel is right, I did not feel well last week, but I had still such an enjoyable week. Despite not feeling well for a lot of the time, somehow I could participate in everything we had been planning. It seems I can feel well one minute and terribly unwell the next! Often I do not feel quite all right early in the morning. What do I do then? I drink warm water with lemon juice and a bit of honey. I take lots of vitamin C. On mornings when I feel very, very unwell I take some aspirin. And last but not least I take a spoonful of olive leaf extract. The olive leaf extract taken three times a day usually seems to help a great deal to keep any flu symptoms in check. Only when I get chilled for staying for too long in very cold air conditioning, then it does not seem to work anymore.

In our house we have during the day usually temperatures between 26 and 30 degrees Celsius. This kind of temperatures I find very pleasant. Anything below 26 degrees, especially with a bit of wind blowing, you’ll find me with head coverings, scarves and jackets; I am that sensitive!

As soon as everything in my body feels all right again, I forget what it is like when my limbs feel heavy, the eyes feel watery, the head feels numb, the chest feels somewhat congested. And I get so very tired!! After a bit of rest, like sitting for a bit in the sunshine perhaps, I feel much better. If not, I just have to lie down for a little while, trying to get nice warm, and then I soon feel better again. The funny thing is, I never lose my appetite. A nice vegetarian meal always cheers me up.

I forgot to mention that I drink lots of lemon/ginger tea and I eat a lot of fruit. When I felt unwell while we were staying at our son’s in Melbourne, our son Martin kept serving us lots of ginger tea which is supposed to strengthen the immune system. And it still works a lot of the time that the tea makes me feel so much better!

RIMG0573

Diary, Sunday 15th of Feb 2015

Yesterday we left our car in Waterfall. From there we caught the train to the city. We got off at Kings Cross Station. Coming out of the station we met Caroline. Peter took a photo as we were walking along Darlinghurst Road.

2015-02-14 01.33.21

A bit further on we had a pizza lunch at the “mad” pizza place. The pizzas we ordered were delicious. I had a pumpkin pizza with plenty of rocket salad on the side. It was so much I could not eat it all. I had not brought my camera. I asked Peter to take a picture of the two pieces that I had left.

2015-02-14 02.10.24

2015-02-14 02.09.45 2

The following pictures are from today.

RIMG0007

RIMG0006

RIMG0016

RIMG0004

RIMG0003

RIMG0001

Monika and Mark did bring little Lucas and Baby Alex along today. They were on their way of taking the little ones back home to their parents who were happy that they could yesterday have a good night out for Valentine’s Day. We had not seen the great-grandsons since Christmas Eve. It was a very nice surprise for us seeing them today!

We have had  a fairly busy week. On Wednesday and as well as yesterday we have been to Matinee performances in Sydney. On Wednesday it was a performance by New York’s SHEN YUN Performing Arts Company. They are the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. We very much enjoyed all this classical dancing. It is claimed that this kind of classical Chinese dancing has a long history,  going back 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.

And yesterday we saw a contemporary Asian Australian story on stage, called Through a Distant Lens. The story is built around old photographs of early Japanese settlers in for instance Broome. These stories go back more than one hundred years. The early Japanese settlers contributed much to the development of Australia’s north. Apart from narration there is naturalistic acting, soundscapes, film, live music and sound, song dance and photography. The old photographs were wonderful to look at on the large screen. They gave a feeling for this long ago life in the northern parts of Australia.

GetAttachment (2)Peter took the above picture. This is the entrance to the theatre of the Griffin Theatre Company.

GetAttachmentWe did see the story of Yasukichi Murakami – Through a Distant Lens

in the Griffin Theatre.

Last Monday we went to the movies while our car was being serviced. We saw in the HOYTS Cinemas in Warrawong “The Theory of everything”. Here is the synopsis to this movie from the HOYTS Cinema page:

“Little was expected from Stephen Hawking, a bright but shiftless student of cosmology, given just two years to live following the diagnosis of a fatal illness at 21 years of age. He became galvanized, however, by the love of fellow Cambridge student, Jane Wilde, and he went on to be called the successor to Einstein, as well as a husband and father to their three children. Over the course of their marriage as Stephen’s body collapsed and his academic renown soared, fault lines were exposed that tested the lineaments of their relationship and dramatically altered the course of both of their lives.”

http://www.hoyts.com.au/movies/2015/theory_of_everything.aspx

I thought this movie was well worth seeing. It was very interesting to see what sort of relationships Stephen Hawking had to other people and how he is managing this very debilitating sickness of  amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. (This is when the nerves that control the muscles are shutting down.) Eddie Redmayne played Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. I thought he played this part extremely well.

On Tuesday we were home. We had a very dear visitor on that day. We want to go to Sydney with Bronwyn to see a French movie during the French Film Festival next month.

On Thursday I felt sick all day. I think having to stay with very cold air-conditioning on Wednesday for long periods of time had an adverse effect on my system. I can never stand very cold wind or air-conditioning for more than an hour or two. I don’t know what I can do about this.

On Friday I still did not feel quite all right. I tried to take it easy. Luckily on Saturday I had overcome this flu-like sickness. It was a beautiful warm day. This helped a lot. The play lasted only for an hour. We were having lunch sitting outside in balmy summer weather. During the train ride to Waterfall I sat on the sunny side near the window, plus I was wrapped up warmly enough.

Caroline had giving us free tickets for the play on Valentine’s Day. Apart from lunch we also had a gelato treat at Messina’s and later an excellent cup of coffee in an outside cafe nearby. All in all we had a lovely day with Caroline, while Matthew had to work on that day.

 

Uta’s Diary of February 2015 continued

Tomorrow, Saturday, is going to be St.Valentine’s Day. I hope it is going to be a good one!

IMG_0559

Chocolate 90%? This is really something, isn’t it? This chocolate comes from Poland. It caught our eyes when last Wednesday we did a bit of shopping in Sydney.

As soon as we arrived home Peter composed the above picture with this extra special chocolate!

Before we went to bed last night, we became aware that there had been a bit of a break through during the talks in Minsk. In only a few hours the fighting in the East Ukraine is going to stop. Let’s hope, that this approaching cease-fire is going to last.

Ukrainian Crisis

Julian Borger is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor. He was previously a correspondent in the US, the Middle East, eastern Europe and the Balkans.
Arming Ukraine army may escalate conflict, west warned.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/08/arming-ukraine-army-escalate-conflict-ocse

Richard Norton-Taylor writes for the Guardian on defence and security and until recently was the paper’s security editor. He is a regular broadcaster.
He joined the Guardian in 1973 as the newspaper’s first European correspondent based in Brussels. He returned to Britain in 1975. He won the Freedom of Information Campaign Award in 1986 and in 1994, and Liberty’s Human Rights Award for journalism in 2010.
He edits the Guardian Defence and Security blog with Ewen MacAskill
US weapons to Ukraine ‘would be matched by Russian arms to rebels’
International Institute for Strategic Studies warns that Moscow could arm separatists more quickly than US could reinforce Ukraine’s forces

Starting a bit of Diary for February 2015

I have recently neglected to write any kind of diary writing or any kind of writing for that matter. What kept me occupied was scanning through quite a few blogs by bloggers I subscribe too. Some of the blogs stirred something in me that I felt I very much liked to reblog. I think sometimes I commented a bit when I reblogged something. All the reblogs I found very much worth noticing in one way or another.

Some of the said reblogs had to do with the Ukrainian crisis. Everything that goes on in connection with this crisis alarms me. Nobody seems to be on top of the crisis. How easily a situation like this can lead to war. This frightens me, it frightens me very much!

Then there are the frightening changes our government here in Australia plans for us. Peter is the secretary of our body cooperative. He just received a notice from the office that our funds are not sufficient for all the necessary repairs that are outstanding right now. All the owners of the units in our complex always want to keep the fees as low as possible. They want to keep as much money as possible for their own personal use. It is the same with taxation overall. Nobody wants to pay a lot of taxes, but expects government to look after services and infrastructure and maintenance of everything. The changes our government plans, are definitely affecting low income earners much more than well off people!

This is what we saw as we entered the Capitol Theatre in Sydney for a Matinee on Wed 11 Feb 2015
This is what we saw as we entered the Capitol Theatre in Sydney for a Matinee on Wed 11 Feb 2015

Yes, we went to Sydney yesterday. I’ll write about it in my next post.