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Stop worrying. Just STOP IT!

30/8/2020

As I scroll through Twitter, emails, and news sites, I find so much talk of COVID-19 and its limitations on life - and the scary implications that it “could happen to you”. And, of course it could happen to anyone – even if most precautions are observed. But I am, like most people, tired of all this.

A walk in the park seems like a good idea.

It is late afternoon and a pale three-quarter moon is looking down from a clear blue sky. There is a cool wind blowing but enough last rays of a fading sun touch my back and make me feel good.

The lorikeets and noisy miners are squeeping and squawping in the trees and flying all about. Though their noise is loud and boisterous, they are welcome company.

I continue walking for 30 minutes. The smell from the tall eucalypts is just enough to tease my senses and, as I turn for home, I start to relax. A little girl in a pink dress and bare feet, runs over to a small slide, giggling as she goes.

With this vision, my afternoon walk has almost been made complete and I go home with a vow to keep off electronic devices for a while.

As I walk into my kitchen, I see that my husband is putting the finishing touches on a beautifully round pizza.

I sigh with contentment.

No more worries – for now.

Go away, COVID-19. You are not wanted.

In memory of Pete

10/8/2020

Remembering my brother, Pete, born disabled, seventy-five years ago, today; the day a bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
Pete lived for sixty-three years and I offer the following in his memory.
(Adapted from: Beatitudes for Disabled People… by Marjorie Chappel)

Blessed are you who take time to listen to defective speech, for you help us to know that if we persevere, we can be understood.
Blessed are you who walk with us in public places and ignore the stares of strangers, for in your companionship we find havens of relaxation.
Blessed are you, when by all these things you assure us that the thing that makes us individuals is not our peculiar muscles, nor our wounded nervous system, but is the God-given self that no infirmity can confine.
Blessed are those who realize that we are human - and don’t expect us to be saintly just because we are disabled.
Blessed are those who pick things up without being asked.
Blessed are those who understand that sometimes we are weak and not just lazy.
Blessed are those who forget our disability of the body and see the shape of our soul.
Blessed are those who see us as a whole person, unique and complete, and not as a “half” or one of God’s mistakes.
Blessed are those who love us just as we are without wondering what we might have been like.

LEST WE FORGET. Darwin. Seven decades on. A letter to a soldier.

31/7/2020

Next Thursday, August 6, it will be 75 years since the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Three days after that day, on August 9, 1945, a bomb landed on Nagasaki, leading to the Japanese surrender on August 15.
(The official signing of the surrender took place on September 2, 1945).
It was a war that cost Australians an estimated $74 billion— and many lives.
It is perhaps timely to remember this war and the part Australia played.

We may think of World War 2 in terms of British and German involvement. Some of us also think of Pearl Harbour and Hiroshima. Not many people instinctively think of the Northern Territory when the subject of the war is broached, and yet there are at least 800 war sites: air strips, ammunition depots and soldier tent sites, in the N.T..
And, no, this was not WW1, Gallipoli, where thousands lost their lives, it was WW2, in Darwin, our Australia.
Troops numbering approximately 250,000 were stationed in the Northern Territory at some stage during the war years. Many lives were lost; many young men were permanently scarred.

Not so long ago, on a visit to the War Memorial at Adelaide River in the Northern Territory, in amongst hundreds of graves, I found a headstone with the date of a young soldier’s death matching the exact date of my birth. I felt unsettled and, ultimately, somehow attached to him.

I have written that soldier a letter:

To: Sapper J.D.Gyton, N202639, 23 Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers.

Dear John,
You’ve been gone for over 70 years now. We never had the chance to meet because you died on the very day I was born. I don’t even know where you lived.
Just a name and number are on the brass plaque that I discovered in the Northern Territory’s Adelaide River War Memorial Cemetery.

I’m not usually one to visit war memorials, but this one time I did, and I was not prepared for the wave of grief that swept over me. As I read the words on the plaques, I felt something like a punch to my gut and found it hard to swallow the sobs that threatened to erupt.
You were 21 when you died, John. It was World War 2 and you were just a boy. But there were graves of others with ages listed as 18 and 19. There was even a grave for a seaman of just 16 years.
What a truly awful war. But then, has any war ever been less than awful?

My father, though slightly older than you, was also in the Australian army during World War 2. And in the Northern Territory too.
At the end of the war, he came home to us and I, as a three-year-old, didn’t know who he was.
But, lucky us! We were fortunate that he had been in Katherine when you were in Darwin. ‘Though Katherine was also on the receiving end of bombs.

Dear John, I think of when my own boy was 21 - a few years back now, and I wonder how I would have dealt with the fact of his death at that age.
On the little plaque, under your name and army details, are the simple words, “In loving memory of my darling son John.”
How did your mother cope? Why is your father not mentioned? Were you your mother’s only child? Did you have sisters and brothers? What about grandparents?
A sweetheart?
How they would have missed you and grieved.

How did you die, John?
I searched the Internet for details and found the word “accidental” as the cause of your death. Whatever happened to make your death “accidental”? You died in the May of 1942, right in the middle of hundreds of Japanese bombing raids on Darwin.

Conservative estimates of the numbers killed during that time put the servicemen tally at 432 and the number of civilian “casualties” at 63. That’s almost 500 people. Five hundred!
Were you one of the many caught up in the panic and un-preparedness of the Australian military? Did you overturn an army vehicle in your haste to reach a position of defence? A place of refuge? Did part of one of the many bombed buildings collapse upon you?
It is now supposed that many more were killed in Darwin than those reported. You were just one, but you were still someone’s son.

If you had lived, you would be over 90 years old now. Would you have lived that long— maybe a great grandfather.?
But you had no chance for anything like that.
Your life was severed at the tender age of 21. To use the word “waste” is too much of a cliché as well as an understatement.

To see my date of birth on a cemetery plaque indicating your date of death shocked me. It made me ask more questions about what happened in Darwin in 1942. The information I gathered shocked me even more. I discovered that the government of the day fudged the figures so that people wouldn’t be alarmed. “Don’t worry”, they said, after the first two raids by the Japanese, “only 17 people were killed”. In fact, 243 lives were lost in those initial raids. And between 300 and 400 wounded.
The air attacks on Darwin continued for nearly two years and the city was bombed 64 times. Was the government still saying, “don’t worry”?

And why are we still making wars?
You died in a war on the day I was born and now I’m an old grey-haired grandmother, and still people kill others by the hundreds in “just” wars.
Will we never learn?

I have never believed in such things as reincarnation, but have sometimes wondered if people’s souls, adrift in the ether, are able to influence other souls as they pass “in transition”, so to speak.
As I entered this world as a baby, could a whisper from your departing spirit have made its way into the new life that was mine?
And, if it did, I hope I have lived my life as you would have wished. Perhaps that whisper for the soul helped me along the way. Perhaps that is why I am a pacifist.

Dear John, you, and those other (at least) 494 people who were killed in the attacks on Darwin, paid the unthinkable and ultimate price all those years ago.
Was it worth it?

I have always been outspoken against war. As a young woman, I marched in moratoriums against the war in Vietnam. But your small bronze plaque has affected me more than any other anti-war message.

Dear Sapper John Gyton, I’m so sorry that you had to die, but now you have become a part of me. I will never forget your name.

To mask, or not to mask In Queensland? - BE PREPARED!

26/7/2020

I am measuring and cutting pieces of fabric, while following instructions on YouTube. On one hand, I cannot believe what I am doing, on the other hand, it is strangely interesting - and almost a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
I am making face masks for the off chance (or inevitability?) that COVID19 will reach the area where I live.

I am in Queensland, a place almost unaffected by the onslaught of the horror virus infecting and killing others in the country where I live. And all over the world.

Members of my family, in the state of Victoria, are ‘in lock-down’ - and petrified. They are staying at home, staying indoors, becoming bored and depressed.
All they can do is be extremely patient, stay away from other people and, occasionally, when their food supplies run low, make a cautious and hurried trip to the nearest (sometimes smallest) supermarket.
Their current situation is far from ideal, but the alternative is risky and horrifying.

I am hoping that our turn will not come, but I will sew some masks – just in case.

BE PREPARED! As they say.

Are we humans next? Extermination? Our Turn?

19/7/2020

How many species of animal life have been obliterated by mankind?
How many species are now extinct?
It’s many, many more than the Tasmanian Tiger.

According to John Woinarski of Charles Darwin University, “Over the last two hundred years at least 34 Australian mammal species and 29 birds have become extinct," (Pacific Conservation Biology – 2018).

A 2014 study claimed Australia's mammal extinction rate was the world's highest, with more than 10 percent of species wiped out since Europeans settled the country two centuries ago.
The main causes of species decline that have been identified include habitat loss, such as through land clearing and other development — and feral cats and foxes.

This did not mention the horrific loss of wildlife in the recent bushfire disaster.

It’s not just Australia, of course: “one eighth of the world’s species – more than a million – are threatened with extinction”. (The Conversation)

And here’s something horrible: from a report in today’s Guardian: The bacteria in humans that has grown resistant to antibiotics has more than likely made its way into wildlife? (that means our sewage has leached into oceans and elsewhere! Erk!)

Imagine how that is affecting marine life.
Or - plants, trees, whole forests, wetlands, we could go on….
Humans have done this!

Now, take time to research the loss of habitat, resulting in the loss of animal life that has occurred since, say, 1950. It’s inestimable.

Sure, we have also killed a lot of humans on the past 100 or so years, using war as an excuse.
Or starvation – often connected to war – or disease.

The popular theory is that man is the superior being here on our planet.
Human Beings are generally thought of as the most important entity in the universe. (Sometimes referred to as humanocentrism).

But then…Hello, COVID19!

Is COVID19 telling us that it’s now OUR turn to feel the heat of possible extinction?

We have exterminated animal species willy nilly over centuries, culminating in tremendous losses over more recent years.
Even our beloved koala has been threatened by extinction. Now, that made some people sit up and take notice. The koala is cute to look at, cuddly to imagine and engenders lots of tourist dollars, so we value it above less attractive or photogenic species.
But they all matter.

Apart from mosquitos, human beings are the biggest cause of death to other human beings.
Yes, forget the Orca, the Great White Shark, Polar Bear, Saltwater Crocodile, Tiger, and others who are Apex predators, but are not (often!) after humans.

We, as a species do a lot of harm to ourselves as well as the rest of the planet.
BUT then along comes something that is perhaps a bigger and smarter top predator – COVID19.
Have we met our match?

How does it feel to be in danger of being obliterated? Just as we have done to all the hundreds of other life forms, animals, plants, insects.

We have far more at our disposal to fight off this stalker, this attacker.
Most threatened animal species have little other than nature and a few concerned individuals to try and protect them. We have everything the world can muster to help us.

But still, how does it feel to be ‘hunted’? To have an enemy that defies our current logic.

Hello, COVID19.

Let’s hope it will be ‘farewell, COVID19’ soon.
Put your face mask on!

Priorities...Sometimes we need a break.

28/6/2020

I seem to be part of a group of like-minded people who are giving Twitter and other social media a break.
My Weebly blogs have been dwindling as my enthusiasm for sharing and discussing News and information has become more and more depressing.

Forced isolation, social-distancing and other necessary behaviours have affected our lives—adding to the despair generated by current political shonky-ness and destruction of values of decency. I am not only referring to Australia’s mess, but also to what is happening around the Globe.

So…there you have the main reason my voice is somewhat muted of late.

Compounding this is the fact that my little dog of 16 years had to be ‘put to sleep’ last week.
The little dog who, when we lived next to the Red Gum Forest in Victoria, daily gleefully ran through trees and long grass, after the scent of baby rabbits. The little dog whose collar was once caught in her doggie companion’s canine tooth as they played—the companion who shook and spun her, trying to break free, ultimately leaving her unconscious. And me, the witness, having to give a small furry body CPR and ‘mouth-to-mouth’ to revive her. The little dog, who moved with us to live in Queensland and who spent her remaining years looking for Eastern Water Dragons and snoozing in the tropical sun on our veranda.

Yes, the little dog, whose joyful and uncomplaining presence was felt by us for all of her 16 years, but who became old and so ill that, last week, I had to wrap her in a blanket and take her to a kindly vet, who gave her a small injection to send her to doggie heaven, while I stroked her soft fluffy head and whispered, ‘good girl’.

So, there will be a break from me for a while. Not long, but a while.

EsEm, an unlikely - or unlikable - leader

20/6/2020

There was once an animal kingdom leader called EsEm, who looked and acted like a mighty tiger, but was really a weasel who had wrapped himself in tiger skin – just to look strong and wise.

EsEm ruled over a kingdom of (once) happy animals. He crowed like a cockerel about being the boss. He pretended to be brave and knowledgeable and many of the kingdom’s inhabitants were mightily fooled.
“Look at our master”, they would say. “He is strong and wise, and he will do much for us and our families”.
And they waited and waited for the good times to come.

Some of EsEm’s big friends were happy as he gave to them plenty of attention and plenty of money. But they were not really friends; they were folk who only wanted things for themselves; they were greedy and mean. But EsEm didn’t notice - or didn’t mind; he was just pleased to hear them agree what a wise leader he was.

Every so often, EsEm would call a gathering, where he would speak to his citizenry. Many busy writing rabbits would gather with their pencils ready to take notes of EsEm’s latest announcement.
The writing rabbits would scratch away at their notepads, listening with their big ears and trying to make sense of what EsEm was saying.

Some of the bigger rabbits (perhaps they were hares) would ask EsEm important questions, to which he would always crossly answer that he had already explained, and he didn’t need to repeat it.

Sometimes EsEm would read words from a page or a screen and if anyone asked him a question about what he had said, he would not answer them.

A few writing rabbits started to wonder if EsEm did genuinely know what he was talking about, but they, like the others, just wrote down the words they had heard and told the rest of the kingdom the latest news.

There were times when EsEm’s actions needed clarifying, but he always managed to convince the writing rabbits that he was the leader and so he was right - and they had to agree.

His companions in the big house he occupied, would tell him he was right. They were happy because he would let them do what they wanted - which dismayed some of his subjects, but none complained.

EsEm’s mates did some foolish things, like wasting many millions of the kingdom’s money. Some acted in a cruel way to some of the population. One companion even sold and bought water that did not exist, and someone sent demanding bills to small folk who did not owe anything. One member of the kingdom staff spent money on a vital supply, but left it in another land, where it could not be used.

There were many, many bad decisions for the kingdom and many errors of judgement, but the writing rabbits did not write much about mistakes, as they knew they were in danger of losing their jobs if they did.

One day, in the middle of an important meeting in the big house, EsEm lost his temper and yelled at a special wise owl and was extremely rude to another. When asked to stop, he argued and was even more rude than before. He was a very grumpy tiger that day and his tiger skin slipped a little to reveal parts of weasel underneath.

Later, he made another of his important announcements, in words only he could understand (or pretended to). This announcement was about education for the younger kingdom inhabitants and how he wished for most of his kingdom folk to become workers and not thinkers.

At this news, some inhabitants started to complain (softly, of course) and some of them even began to question EsEm’s wisdom.
“What will we do, if every animal is a worker and none is able to think deeply and work out important values?”

One of these wondering citizens remembered hearing a human story of an emperor who was somewhat similar to EsEm, and not really capable of being a leader. The emperor in the story was called out to be a fake by a small boy.

“Where can we find such a small boy for us?” he asked his friends.
“Maybe the writing rabbits will act as that small boy”, one suggested.
And they asked some of the writing rabbits to tell the true story. And, some of the rabbits thought it might be possible.

BUT THEN, EsEm called another one of his gatherings to make a VERY important announcement.
And, it was then that he told them that the WHOLE KINGDOM was in danger of being spied on and wrecked by a ‘state’, whose name he wouldn’t mention.

The writing rabbits went to work with their pencils - going extra fast as they spread the frightening story about the kingdom being under threat by some invisible force.

And the kingdom’s inhabitants were told about this, and all tales of EsEm’s rude outburst and his foolish plans for the young were forgotten. And the dangerous, yet invisible, threat was the only story told that day.

And the citizenry of EsEm’s kingdom went back to whatever was their lot in life and EsEm walked down the corridor of the big house, with his tiger arms across the shoulders of the other fake leaders and all was (not) well, once more.

And they didn’t even hear a voice cry out, “Oh, for a little human boy to call out, ‘The emperor has no clothes!’”

Taking a Break from Hostility

14/6/2020

Have to take a break from blogging, Twitter, FB, and all. Too much to take in lately. Too distressing, too much to complain and protest about.

The 'Black Lives Matter' protests, which I totally support, are overwhelming, especially if you delve into some of the ‘behind the scenes’ stories – both in U.S. and here in Australia, appalling and upsetting.

Protests about incarceration and mistreatment of asylum seekers, which, again, I support, bring out stories to break your heart and make you wonder about the minds and hearts of those supposedly voted to be our ‘leaders’.

The posturing and ignorance of our PM makes me nauseous.

So, although these matters must not be ignored - and I feel a need to add my voice to the distress that exists, I have had to turn away for a little while…to take a breather.

Instead, here is a light-hearted offering on a topic that is so distant from today’s battles against hate, discrimination, and Covid-19, it is ridiculous…but here goes:
___________________

It’s about footwear. While we are in isolation and the weather is cooling down, I am wearing socks with sandals.

It is an unacknowledged fact that the combination of good quality socks teamed with good quality sandals is the ultimate in footwear comfort.

I have not (so far) ventured out in public with this attire – well, not yet - but, once I am in my eighties, and arthritis has overtaken every toe, I just might.
In fact, I know I will.

Those of you who scoff at such unattractive (?) footwear are missing out on one of life’s simple luxuries.
And, yes, I know that some of you, in the privacy of your home, occasionally pull on a pair of comfortable socks and then don your sandals— but you’d never admit to doing so.

Those old men (and legendary German tourists) who are mocked and sniggered at as they walk by, comfortable in their sandal and sock combo are holding on to a secret that I am now sharing.

Wearing socks and sandals is heaven for feet.

Sweating the Small - and the BIG - stuff.

30/5/2020

I recently decided to not ‘sweat the small stuff’ (as the advice goes).
So, what do I mean by ‘the small stuff’? Well, I will stop worrying if every tile on the kitchen floor is not immaculately clean. Who cares? I will not worry if the doona on the bed is crooked…really, did I ever fret about that? I will not sigh in the morning when my newly shampooed hair looks like a rat has chewed it in the night. I will not be upset if the dog smells like a dog. I will not worry if I have pruned a shrub unevenly and I will not worry if I mistakenly wear my oldest shoes out shopping. (They are comfortable, and I didn’t notice)
These are but a few small things I will not sweat over.

But…how to not sweat the BIG stuff? That’s the problem.

Most of the ‘small’ stuff I can change - or have control over. Not so with the BIG stuff.

Take for example:
The growing lack of equality in our country - and around the globe. Where is the equity, or the fairness, giving everyone the ability to receive what should be theirs? The gap between rich and poor is expanding massively, with governments (worshipfully & generously) giving to the well-off, while demonising the ‘battler’.

According to the ABC, Australia's richest increased their wealth in 2019, by more than 20 per cent, which seems to be ongoing. There has been a staggering 53-fold increase in wealth for the top 200 in just 35 years.

(Back in 1984, Australia's 200 richest people had a combined wealth of $6.4 billion. By 2019, they had a combined wealth of $342 billion).
But. the poorest 40 per cent of households, remain stuck with just 2.8 per cent of the nation's wealth between them.

The irony at this time of COVID-19, is that it is the poorly paid workers to whom we turn to keep us safe and keep the wheels of what’s left functioning: they clean the buildings, they care for the nursing home residents and the disabled, they mind the children. They unload the goods and stock the supermarket shelves, while the well-off isolate themselves in their comfortable homes.
There is little recognition given to those good and worthy workers.

The obscene worship of money, encouraged by today’s politicians is creeping into individuals’ lives - generating admiration for, not good work, but wealth. Any form of equity and (I might even say) decency, seems to have vanished.

There is nothing I can do about this. So why should I ‘sweat’ about it?

Another big thing I ‘sweat’ about is the plight of our (our?) asylum seekers.
What changed us from being welcoming to those souls who seek asylum…notice the words, ‘seek asylum’…not seeking to do something illegal or to scare us, but merely to seek asylum.
It has been said that no one would get in a leaky boat and set off for unknown distant shores if they didn’t think the water was safer than the land they had left.
What made us change? What made us – the people who welcomed refugees from Vietnam with open arms and helped them settle here in safety (and others before them) - What has made us harden our hearts in such a terrible way?
Has this cruelty come about simply because we’ve been educated to be afraid of strangers?

I can sign every petition offered to me, I can verbally express my concerns, but nothing will change the opinions of those who firmly believe the lies pushed by certain forces.

There are so many other BIG things that I ‘sweat’ about:

Australia’s unemployment hitting 20%, due to the havoc wreaked by coronavirus, is one.

Trump’s America is a very BIG one! What can we do about that catastrophe? Bugger all, I think.

The pandemic’s toll in U.K. is of huge concern to me. I can do nothing about this either, apart from encouraging my loved ones who live there to continue their watchfulness and care.

But the biggest BIG worry of all is Climate Change.
It is ‘as plain as the nose on your face’ that Global Warming caused by human activity, such as burning of fossil fuels, is a HUGE worry for all. Yet, the ‘worship-of-money’ thing rears its ugly head constantly as politicians reject science and follow the money-men as they deal irresponsibly, lying, pushing, shoving and DONATING big amounts gained by exploiting the ground we rely on for survival.

The Australian Museum & other responsible organisations tell us that ‘Humans have the solutions, skills and capacity to address what is needed to help our ailing earth’
But?????

Meanwhile, as just a small current example, Queensland farmers are continuously trying to protect their land and water from the destructive forces that push for coal and gas exploration at any price.
It’s a never-ending battle.

Where is the hope? Where are the positives?

There are many, many more things that worry me (and others) and I could fill pages with the horrors of such subjects as black deaths in custody, domestic violence, the neglect of small children, the mistreatment of the homeless and on and on….

But, while we worry (rightfully) about this awful pandemic and I personally have given up ‘sweating the small stuff’, the BIG stuff remains.

Sadly, there are many who never give a thought to these big issues. But perhaps they are the lucky ones.
Television ‘life-style’ shows, celebrity gossip, sports, Foxtel, Netflix and shopping provide escapes for those who don’t care. A few somewhat mindless pursuits provide them with all they need for something to think about.

I feel helpless but am I also feeling hopeless?
We must have some hope.

Meanwhile, I’ll stop ‘sweating the small stuff’ and see if that helps.

My Fake Brush With Corona

22/5/2020

Two things: ONE – I was going to stop writing about Covid-19 and, TWO – I knew I was coping well with my relaxed, confident approach concerning my ability to avoid any threat of catching the dreaded virus.
After all, I was isolated at home for 95% of the time – only emerging for necessary purchase of food. I continually washed my hands (the instructed way) and anointed them with sanitiser if I ever ventured out.

But then, one day, I awoke with a terrible sore throat. Eeek!

The previous day, I had read an account from an infected passenger from the Ruby Princess cruise ship. He stated that the first sign of illness for him was a ‘scratchy throat’.
Eeek, again!

Swallowing a couple of Panadol, I grabbed the two lists of symptoms we had attached to the front of the fridge and went through the ‘identifying the symptoms’ message:
SORE THROAT: COVID-19, rates ‘Sometimes’
Ah, well, that’s assuring.

BUT, on the other list, (‘Important announcement – CORONAVIRUS’) I read something very unsettling:
THE SYMPTOMS:

It will first infect the throat, so you’ll have a sore throat lasting 3-4 days. YIKES!

I hopped on to ‘Doctor Google’ and searched ‘sore throat’ to see what usually causes such a complaint.
It seems there are virus-caused and bacteria-caused sore throats. What was mine? And where did it come from? I hadn’t been anywhere – or near anyone.
Throat infections – sometimes called ‘strep throat’ have to come from a source. But I hadn’t been near anyone!

A couple of days went by. As my Panadol taking increased, I resorted to the age-old remedy of gargling with salt water, but I still had a sore throat and my anxiety was rising. My head hurt, and my ears were aching.

Perhaps a walk in the park would provide relief from my (hopefully imagined) deadly virus attack.
It had been raining and the towering gums in the park emitted a gorgeous eucalyptus perfume that did, indeed, help me feel better.
But then I sneezed – not once, but five times. So, home to check the list of symptoms again. Sneezing?

From COVID-19 message No. 1: Sneezing rated ‘NO’ Great!
From the second info sheet, ‘sneezing’ is only mentioned as a distributor of the virus. Not sure if that was reassuring or not.

By day 5, I was taking fewer Panadol and only gargling with salt water once a day. My headache had eased considerably and my ears were only feeling a little raw. Hardly enough to worry about.

I settled down to read the latest news on COVID-19, and found that here, in Queensland, there are only 12 ‘active cases’, with a mere 4 people in hospital suffering from the virus.
That was very comforting.

I swallowed – to feel my previously angry throat was very subdued.

So, it seems I probably had a case of the ‘Common Cold’ – source unknown…but it showed that I was not such 'a smarty pants’ after all - so confident that the virus wouldn’t touch me…
which it didn’t.

BUT a sore throat sent me into quite a spin.

I may not be alone.
Anyone else imagined they’d possibly succumbed to the ‘rona’?

We're doing well...so far!

15/5/2020

A basic acknowledgement:

I wasn’t going to write any more about COVID-19.
I had simply had enough; depressed by reading news and sick of listening to radio and television, with counts of how many people had succumbed to the virus. (None around here, incidentally). BUT….( a little piece of positive commentary):

After a quick visit to the local shopping centre early this morning, I took a little time to be impressed by what we have so quickly become used to.

At the main entrance to the shopping centre there is an automatic hand-sanitiser dispenser. You simply place your hands under a small barrel-shaped container and out squirts just enough sanitiser to carefully rub into both hands.

Once at the entry to the supermarket, there is another slightly different hand sanitiser dispenser, alongside a dispenser of sanitising wipes to use on the trolley handle.
So, even though (like me) you may have already applied sanitiser at home, you are able to add a second or third coat, as it were, to your hands - as well as cleaning/disinfecting the trolley.

There are signs directing customers to keep an appropriate distance from each other, with marks on the floor and airport-like barricades leading to checkouts, where you find a friendly assistant behind a Perspex partition.

So super safe!

Speaking to family members in UK, I was surprised to hear that none of these precautions is available there.
Why not?
It seems simple enough.

Figures of coronavirus illness and death in the UK are horrendous. Surely a small, manageable safety addition to the shopping experience would be the least authorities could assist with.
Anything - no matter how small - that might help.

So grateful for our shopping centres’ helpfulness for what they are offering — and a shout out to COLES and WOOLWORTHS in Australia.
(And, ALDI also)
Thank you!

PS: But be aware that easing of restrictions has proven to be disastrous in some countries.
Please continue to stay isolated as much as you possibly can.

The Virus, The Fires & Climate Change: Our 3 horror stories.

9/5/2020

The news of the day (well, yesterday) is that the PM has decided that we are near the end of the dangerous part of the pandemic. He is sharing plans for a “COVID-safe” economy, with the gradual re-opening of restaurants, cafes, shops, libraries and playgrounds.
And schools, by July.
The Chief Medical Officer describes it as being a “cautious and gentle” approach.

Well, gee, I hope it’s the right decision. I worry about a possible ‘second wave’, as seen horrifically in Singapore, when they eased restrictions too soon.

Time will tell, I suppose. Nothing I can do about it, apart from keeping myself and my family as safe as possible.
______________________________________________________________________________

But, can we please just for a little while, forget the coronavirus (yes, I know it’s hard), but I’d like to share a few thoughts about the bushfire victims whose plight has been largely forgotten - overtaken by the pandemic panic.

It’s probably not even debatable as to which disaster is the greater, but I am aware that people affected by our ‘Black Summer’, over six months ago, are most likely still asking the question they were asking way back then. That is, ‘What are we going to do now?’

Remember that THOUSANDS of houses were lost, burnt, obliterated. Not just five or six, not ten or 11, not even a hundred, but THOUSANDS.

And, thirty-four people DIED.

After the fires, the federal government announced an amount of $2 billion to be used to help rebuild and aid the many families and communities affected. That now seems to have been a theoretical pot of money. Or, as the PM said not so long ago, it was ‘a notional’ amount. (No, I don’t know what that means, either). It has not been listed in the latest budget figures, so…?

There has been what appears to be a lot of duckshoving and I can see no evidence to show that a couple of billion dollars has arrived in places of need.

Nor can I see where the millions of dollars donated by the public – and the ‘celebrities’ went – that’s still being wrangled over, apparently. (Red tape, or ?)

Sure, there has been some clearing of rubble around sites that once were homes. I don’t know whether that has been accomplished by government depts, or by the army, or by individuals. But each burnt homesite cleared has meant about six or seven truckloads per house, to remove what was once a lived-in (and loved-in) home. How awful would that be to see a life-time’s work and living experience carted away (in bits) on the back of a truck?

Many of these people – the ones who haven’t left in despair - are still living in tents and borrowed caravans. Their plight forgotten; taken over by the worry around the pandemic. Survivors have been left behind. “What are we going to do now?” some are still asking.

It seems the answer may be, “You’re on your own now. We have greater things to concern us; greater things to plan and budget for.”

Could we please have a little more of the “We’re all in this together” attitude, for those affected by the fires?

Of course, the fire disaster is not all that the pandemic has covered up (so to speak).
Have you noticed that the focus on Climate Change has evaporated? What of the catastrophic future guaranteed if we ignore our planet’s plight?

If we dismiss Global Warming and its terrible effects – those we are already witnessing - we will only add that horrendous mess to the current pandemic struggle, as we try to make life on earth liveable.

When I think about Climate Change, (and, yes, it does need capital letters), I am haunted at the prospect of the dramatic changes to be faced by my grandchildren. I really can’t imagine any of them – or their offspring – setting off in a spaceship to find another (more liveable) planet. What will they do?
_____________________________________________________________________________

So, if you must – if you can - feel pleased and relaxed about the pandemic’s imminent end - as the PM tells us that our lives will soon be back to normal.
But also give a thought to the survivors of ‘Black Summer’ and keep doing your bit to alleviate the effects of Climate Change. Don’t allow one disaster to hide the one before. Don’t push aside the threat of Global Warming.

It’s all a bit too hard, I know, but give it a try.

Keep social distancing, wash your hands, plant some trees - and nudge a politician to remember those affected by bush fires.

May Day! A Happy one?

1/5/2020

So, it’s a new month.
May the first, 2020… May Day.
In Europe, May Day is a public holiday usually celebrated on 1 May. It is an ancient festival of spring.
(Is anyone in Europe celebrating on this May Day, 2020 ?)

In the late 19th century, May Day was chosen in many countries as the date for International Workers' Day.
In some Australian states, May Day is a public holiday, celebrated on or near 1 May. Nothing to do with spring – as we are now in our third month of autumn.

This year, Monday 4 May is Labour Day 2020, in Queensland – and a public holiday.
Queensland, for a few years, celebrated Labour Day in October, but that first Monday in October is now called ‘Queen’s Birthday’(!)
______________________________________________________________________________

Not really as a celebration of May Day, but…The Queensland premier has announced that a few covid19 restrictions will be lifted from tonight. Nothing too drastic. Just a leavening of some draconian rules about visiting.
We are allowed to go driving, as long as it’s within 50kms of our home.
We are allowed two visitors at a time - and some retail shops will be open for non-essential items, such as clothing.

So, maybe some of us will feel freedom creeping back into our lives.

BUT…
Whatever May Day may mean to you, the question is: Will this May Day, 2020, be remembered as a happy time or unhappy time, with more of the same – isolation, social distancing - and worry?

I worry about loosening our social isolation ‘shackles’ too soon.

I worry most of all about letting school children go back to school – no matter what.
The idea that the coronavirus hardly affects children is not altogether true, although children are, in the main, less seriously affected – the reason is, as yet, unclear.

Two days ago, there was a report of a four-year-old child in NSW diagnosed with the virus, leading to the closure of an early learning centre.
A similar report came from Melbourne, where it was unsure (then) if the child was infected or not.

There have been children infected in other countries – some of whom have sadly died.
And, now reports from Europe (UK, France and Spain) and US tell us that doctors fear that the virus may be affecting children in serious and different ways.
(ABC): ‘Several worrying cases involving coronavirus infection of children and younger adults have emerged from the UK and USA in the last few weeks.
In the UK, a few children have shown up at hospitals with a serious illness.
And in America, younger adults have shown up at hospitals after suffering from strokes.
While the total numbers are low, it reveals there's still a lot we don’t know about this virus…’

Health officials in the U.K. are warning that Covid-19 could be causing a new and rare inflammatory condition in children.

Shouldn’t that info give us pause regarding Aussie kids returning to school in large numbers?
Think about it.
__________________________________________________________________________

But, back to our May Day…
What will this coronavirus style May Day bring for us?
Whatever the changes, if any...Please tolerate the isolation and social distancing a bit longer, everyone.

Hooray for the state premiers who have stuck by their strict isolation rules. It is paying dividends.

We are lucky Australians.
We can only hope that the government and other ‘powers that be’ can help the populace remain under control as much as necessary and that people remain vigilant.
AND SAFE.

This phrase from an old hymn keeps popping into my head:
“Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow…”

One day soon we may answer yes, to “Are we there yet?”

That’s all we can hope for, I suppose.

Happy May Day!

A New Dawn Coming?

24/4/2020

A silver lining to the coronavirus may be hard to find, but there just might be a glimmer of hope, some good news, even a sign (and a sigh) of relief.
Well, here in Australia, anyway.

Let’s see what has been revealed over the past few days:
Firstly:

“Australia has recorded its lowest daily increase in cases since early March...” (From Guardian Australia)

And, those numbers are continuing to decline.

Perhaps the cause of that good news can be found here:

“The Australian Bureau of Statistics released its first survey … looking at the household impacts of COVID-19. It collected information from 1059 people via telephone between March 31 and April 6. According to the survey, a staggering 98 per cent of Australians said they had been practising social distancing … The survey also found about 88 per cent of those surveyed were avoiding public spaces and public events, and about 87 per cent had cancelled personal gatherings.”

(from News.com.au)

According to latest figures, Australia is at a seven-day average of substantially below 50 new cases diagnosed.
How good is that?
AND:

Although the reason is not yet clear, Hospital Emergency patient numbers have plummeted. That means there are fewer people taking up room and (nurse & doctor) time when both are needed elsewhere.

(There is a slight problem here as some medical staff are worried that people are avoiding hospitals, when perhaps they should be seeking treatment for other (non coronavirus) ailments).

In most Australian states, there are now thousands of hospital beds that are currently not needed. They are still there - and we must hope that they will stay empty…but must not be complacent.

Then there’s the fact that, although the (Australian) flu season has begun, cases of (ordinary) flu have decreased dramatically.

Reasoning behind this is that, because of staying at home, social distancing PLUS the added bonus that people have learned how to - and have embraced - the wonderful ‘new idea’ of effective hand washing!

Hospitals have announced that some elective surgery could resume within a week.

These are just some of the good stories.

Apart from the sickness and hospital side of things:

Online shopping deliveries shows there has been a boom like no other - and good times for those who are legitimately using online methods to sell products. Plus, great for people needing goods but don’t wish to leave home.

(Australia Post is very busy!)

There has been a rise in quality work by inspired street artists...

The coronavirus pandemic is inspiring street artists to get painting, whether it's to express political views and fears, to thank heroes or just to point out the absurdity of the situation. (Look them up)

Sales of bicycles is the highest in memory for many bike shops.
What a good sign that is!

Most capital cities have the clearest, bluest skies in years.
Another win!

There has been a boom in pet sales and ‘adoption’ of cats and dogs from animal shelters…assuming these pets are continued to be loved and cared for after the crisis is over, it’s a wonderful thing.

So you see, although there may be no real silver lining, there is reason for hope for a future – coronavirus free.

We should not forget the people who have suffered; those who have been victims of this awful illness – and those who have lost loved ones because of the virus.
We must be thankful for what Australia has achieved.
And...We must not forget the tireless work done by medical teams.

This poem (below) popped up online the other day. It’s beautiful and I hope it’s okay to share it.

And the people stayed home.
And read books, and listened, and rested,
and exercised, and made art,
and played games, and learned new ways of being,
and were still.
And listened more deeply.
Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.
Some met their shadows.
And the people began to think differently.
And the people healed.
And, in the absence of people living in ignorant,
dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways,
the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed,
and the people joined together again,
they grieved their losses, and made new choices,
and dreamed new images,
and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully,
as they had been healed.
(by U.S. writer/poet/retired teacher, Kitty O’Meara)

Keep safe, keep well, wash your hands.

Staying safe & Surviving!

16/4/2020

The notices nailed to parts of the local park have increased in their severity.
The signs started by telling us ‘social distancing’ was the way to go. The signs are now stating boldly that the area is CLOSED. They are not trying to frighten us (or I hope they’re not), they - the signs themselves, or the council people who ordered them - are trying to keep us all safe from this incredibly rampant virus.

Physical separation seems the best way to do this. If we keep to ourselves and severely limit our contact with others, the risk of meeting with the virus and becoming infected lessens.
That’s okay and most of us are coping with these rules and regulations without too much trouble.

But, it’s still early days. How will we be feeling in a month’s time?

In three months’ time?

Six months’ time?

A year?

Eventually, boredom will set in – but more than that, a difficult task may be to rein in a creeping fear of what the future holds. And it’s a very real fear.

Reining in fear will take effort. Right now, it’s fine for television programs to show a ‘good news story’ every so often. Something to warm our hearts; maybe a kind deed from some part of community to another - the firemen delivering birthday wishes to house-bound kids, people singing, or dancing in their driveways. But such deeds and happenings are in danger of becoming a bit stale and ‘same-ish’. We might become wearied by too many ‘let’s look on a bright side’ stories.

The constant enumeration of states and countries’ infection and death rates will become a monotonous and dreary wallpaper in our lives – as well as being terrifying.
I have a son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter living in the UK and, while we (smug) Australians listen to our country’s low infection figures, we hear that, in the UK, a thousand people a day are DYING of this virus. Fear for my family grabs its icy grip on my heart at every such news announcement.

It is sometimes difficult to rein in the fear.

And, now there is another fear. Some in the business community - the moneyed - are proposing the idea of creating ‘herd immunity’.

According to The Conversation, UK,
‘Herd immunity means letting a large number of people catch a disease, and hence develop immunity to it, to stop the virus spreading.’

The writer goes on to say:
‘Let’s say Australia and New Zealand relied on herd immunity. Now let’s assume, conservatively, that 10% of the population were infected – that’s 500,000 New Zealanders and 2.5 million Australians. Over a short period, those numbers would disastrously overwhelm the nations’ health systems.’

Doesn’t sound like a happy solution to me!

Actually, the UK tried it for a while, then panicked and changed their minds – too late for many!

This week, Nine News Political Editor, Chris Uhlmann, had this to say:
‘When the International Monetary Fund meets this week it is expected to forecast the deepest contraction for the global economy since the Great Depression.’
No doubt true...But then…..
‘…older Australians should also be free to roam where they please because we live in a democracy. They should be allowed to make an informed choice, weighing the risks they face against the lives they want to lead….
If a grandparent chooses the hugs of a grandchild over the chance that a loving embrace might one day kill them who are we to say it’s not their choice to make?’

Is he for real?

Look, I’m a grandmother and I have had a happy and fulfilling life and, to be honest, I would far rather I die than any of my children or grandchildren, BUT, that’s a different sort of choice. It's not a valid choice one can make.
I don’t think the ‘herd immunity’ choice is one that decides, ‘Okay, so you’re a grandma who would willingly give your life for your children, so, off you go – and thanks.’ This virus will not choose the grandmas like me and leave the younger generation.
This virus is far sneakier than that.

To save the economy downfall, the two and a half million Australians who could die would not necessarily be your grandma.
It might be you, or your friends or the kid next door – or your daughter or son, or your mother, or father, or …. anyone!

Putting money before people’s lives is an unhappy thought.

Sure, the economy will crash – it’s already started. People are out of work and society is crumbling in many areas…but we have been there before and come out of it.

Sure, it's extremely difficult; it takes time. It also takes a different outlook on life in general.

So, for now, obey the signs in the parks and elsewhere and concentrate on positive thinking.

We will survive.

Our need for 'Mother Nature'

9/4/2020

Our current need for ‘Mother Nature’
To paraphrase Paul McCartney:
‘When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Nature comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be…..’
_______________________________________________________________________________
I see him most mornings at first light.
A middle-sized Eastern Water-Dragon sitting on one of the rocks at the far end of the pool.
He is about 40 centimetres long and quite handsome.

Over the course of the morning he comes and goes. I watch him while I’m eating my breakfast. He disappears for a while and then my attention is drawn to some other – very young – dragons. Some so tiny, their body no thicker than a skewer.

Each year, between about October and May, some of these delightful dragons make our place their home. They come in sizes from about 12 centimetres and ‘thin as a whip’ to almost a metre long, strong and stripy.

The tail of a dragon takes up two-thirds of his size; baby dragons’ tails are mere threads at their end.

A couple of hours after breakfast, when I am having a cup of tea, a little dragon almost always runs out of the nearby creeper. He is quick at catching insects, mainly ants and I watch his tiny throat muscles move as he chews and swallows his prey.
He is often joined by another, slightly larger, dragon. They do not socialize but eye each other off from a safe distance.

One morning the tiniest dragon caught a garden worm. It was almost as big as him. ‘He’ll never eat that’, was my thought as I watched for some minutes as he began to manipulate his tiny mouth and jaw, swallowing hard. At one stage there was a piece of worm protruding from his mouth, looking as if a tongue, far too big for such a small creature, was poking out as a rude insult. It took minutes, but the worm was eventually down inside the little dragon, who then ran off (not as quickly as usual) – no doubt to have a big rest.

These are part of my outdoor observations, while house-bound during this terrible pandemic.

It’s not only dragons who keep me amused and uplifted.
There is a magpie who sits on the back fence and warbles his beautiful song most mornings. After a few minutes of singing, he glides down to the grass, eyes (and ears?) cocked, watching and listening. Silently he stalks invisible creatures before plunging his sharp beak into the ground, to emerge with a quickly eaten insect or grub.

The magpie is but one of the bird visitors. There are several currawongs who fly in and around - and a kookaburra who makes an occasional visit on a tree branch or fence top.
His laughter is a welcome sound - never long enough.

If the currawongs’ call joins the kookaburra’s, we know there’s a good possibility of rain.

We have small flocks of colourful lorikeets forever crowding the grevilleas, joining the noisy miners and blue-faced honey-eaters.

Lately butterflies of all colours and sizes have filled our backyard air, as well as dragonflies, big and small; blue, silver, black and red.
All these creatures are my companions every day.
They make days of isolation bearable.

Of course, we read books, we listen to music and catch up with podcasts and Twitter, Face Book, Face Time and News bulletins.
But it is the natural world and its wonder that is the saving force of ‘Lockdown’.

Our grass is green and the garden with all its current flowering glory helps greatly, as does the view from our back deck over to a small area of parkland that adjoins a treed golf course.

As I look through our palm trees and frangipani, I see clumps of tall eucalypts no further than a few hundred metres away. The koalas seem to have left but we never stop hoping for a re-visit.

I miss my (past) rural living but am grateful for the fact that we are not cooped up in a concrete city block with no view of nature.
I feel for city folk with no means of escape into the bush - or visits to the seaside. I especially feel for children who have no green grass to run on or trees to climb.

It is now that we have a great need for the benefits of the natural world.
Whether it’s water dragons, birds, butterflies or merely gardens and trees, we need these parts of nature to help us through the isolation forced on us by this dreadful Covid19 pandemic.

Stay well during this stressful time and try and find peace in nature and its surrounds, wherever you can.

Some interesting quotes:

From ‘MensLine’, Australia:
“…science and research is only just beginning to understand – that the healing power of nature can have a marked effect on mental wellbeing…”

Dr. Vicki Harber (US): “…when researchers compare children who play outdoors with those who play indoors, they find that the outdoor children have less stress, reduced aggression, and more happiness”.

Frank Lloyd Wright said, “Study Nature, love Nature, stay close to Nature. It will never fail you.”

The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (US): “…people who live within 1 kilometre of a park or a wooded area experience less anxiety and depression than those who live farther away from green space.”

From a report by the University of Minnesota:
“Being in nature, or even viewing scenes of nature, reduces anger, fear, and stress and increases pleasant feelings. Exposure to nature not only makes you feel better emotionally, it contributes to your physical wellbeing, reducing blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, and the production of stress hormones…”
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For anyone ‘upset’ by my referral to dragons and birds as ‘he’ and not ‘it’ (or ‘she’), I cannot bear to think of these beautiful creatures as mere ‘its’, and he/she is so clumsy, it just has to be ‘he’.
Sorry.

Always look on the bright side...

1/4/2020

Let’s look on the bright side of this awful virus.

The good news:

Lots of small children now have Mummy and Daddy at home with them all day.
AND, lots of Mummies and Daddies have all day every day to play with their children – only interrupted by the need to get some work done. (Ha!)
Families have the chance to play together for seven days of the week.

How good is that?

Then there’s:

Dogs are getting lots of walks.
Petrol is cheaper. (Or it should be). Except we’re not buying as we’re not going anywhere!
We are buying what we NEED and not what we WANT.
We are saving plastic bags.
We are cooking more at home.
We are using every speck of every piece of fruit and every vegetable…there is less rubbish.

(When I say ‘we’ I am assuming that ‘we’ are all doing the right thing!)

Home haircuts are free.
Kindness is showing in several ways.
No matter what we think about how our government has coped (or not), many people are being looked after in one way or another.
The roads are quieter.
Air pollution is much lower in most urban areas.

AND:

Beijing has blue sky – and there have been reports of birds in the Beijing sky.

BUT, some not-so-good news:

Even in Australia we don’t seem to have enough respirators.
So many businesses have had to close.

We are not always remembering how privileged we are to be living in a first world country.
WE can self-isolate – some people can’t.
WE can stay two metres apart from all others - some people can’t.
WE can be a ‘prisoner’ in our own comfortable home – some people don’t have a home at all.
WE can go out to replenish food supplies, as long as we are careful about our own well-being. This is often not the case for people in many third world countries.

______________________________________________________________________________

I keep saying that I won’t go out to shop anymore. It’s not worth the risk.
BUT yesterday morning I donned a pair of disposable gloves and braved the fruit market just after 7am. There was hardly anyone there. I grabbed a trolley and piled in fruit and vegetables. Picking up a rockmelon (remember, they’re no longer ‘cantaloupes’?) one finger of a rubber glove was torn. Luckily, I had made doubly sure of safety and anointed my hands with sanitiser as well as wearing gloves!

Despite the higher than normal prices, I managed to buy a decent amount of fresh food for just over $50.
Home before 8am.

These are strange times indeed.

We must keep ‘doing the right thing’. Somewhere there is a tiny light at the end of this long and gloomy tunnel and, hopefully, when we reach it, we will all have a new appreciation of what is important.
______________________________________________________________________________

Have I mentioned before that, even before COVID-19, I would never, ever, have gone on one of those horrendous cruise ships?

Keep safe. Keep well. Wash your hands.

Sustaining soup in times of Isolation.

27/3/2020

Tuesday’s news bulletin gave the latest announcements of how we as a country are (supposedly) dealing with the Covid-19 Virus.
Some restrictions are obvious, some should be far more serious and some are a trifle confusing…such as ‘schools are open’ Vs ‘no gathering at playgrounds’.

Here’s another: “Hairdressers and barbers can remain open but must adhere to the one person per four square metre rule. Appointments cannot be longer than 30 minutes.”
(So, men only? And four square metres?)

Ooops…apparently that has now been changed and hairdressers are no longer facing limits. WHY? Too many posh ladies (& lady politicians) complained? Or those rip-off hairdressing franchises?
Anyway, that will be interesting. Actually, right now I am not keen to visit the hairdresser, and I only ever need a cut - no colours, no curls, no treatment – just a cut. But, I won’t be going, so looks like I will end up with a pile of (white & grey) hair piled up in a bun on the top of my head at the crisis’s end.
The other person in this house will be okay as I have been cutting his hair for decades. But will I be brave enough to ask him to return the favour? I think not.

Also, I think that schools are mostly closed now. Every day a new announcement.

But back to survival planning, while quarantined.

Last time I worked on breakfast.
Now for LUNCH.

For the past year or so I have had a fixed (boring) routine for lunch. Usually beginning with something like a slice of rock melon (remember when it was cantaloupe?), followed by a cheese and lettuce (seeded cob loaf) sandwich.

Finished off with a cup of tea and a sweet treat of choc chip slice (or whatever I had recently made).

Now, here’s the problem: We have finished the latest rock melon. The cheese is on its last 2 centimetres and the lettuce is almost gone.
Do I brave the fruit market to buy more rock melon & lettuce or do I follow a new revised lunch habit?

And cheese? Cannot live without!
Decisions, decisions…

What else could I have for lunch that does not need a trip to shops?
There are eggs. I enjoy an egg sandwich – but without lettuce it would not be so great.

More thinking needed.
____________________________________________________________
MEANWHILE – a lot has changed…

It is now FRIDAY and I have braved the outdoors and the small Coles supermarket, a couple of kms away. (Cheese, remember).

Arriving just after 7am, I had to show my Seniors’ Card to prove I’m old.
“Gee”, I said to the young man checking details, “I thought you’d only have to look at me to know I’m an oldie”.
“Yeah, sorry”, he said, “It’s a rule.”

So, wiping the trolley handle with a ‘wipe’ offered by the store, I proceeded down a few aisles, keeping my 1.5m distance from other shoppers. It was not a happy time. I could almost see the fear in other (old!) shoppers’ faces. No one said anything but you could see people hold their breath as they passed by each other.

At the checkout, there was a sign announcing, ‘card only’. I saw it too late and had cash in my hand. As I fumbled to put it away and pull out my EFTPOS card, the woman at the checkout, suspecting I was old and doddery, kindly said, “Never mind Love, I’ll take the money. This rule only came in today. Next time it’s card, okay?’’

Piling my goods on shelf, getting change, packing said stuff (by myself – no help allowed by staff now) - into a couple of cotton bags and reloading trolley, I was afraid I might be holding up others but, everyone being oldies, they were all as slow as I was, so no need to panic.

But, once home and hand scrubbed, I did almost panic, on thinking over my shopping experience.

It was scary. It was unusual and it was unnerving. What the hell is happening?

I will not be going out shopping again until this disaster is over.

I bought some lamb bones to make stock to keep for soup making. It will join the chicken and vegie stock supplies that are in the freezer. Once we have used up the vegetables that are currently in the fridge, I will put whatever is in the pantry into the soup, such as chickpeas, split peas, lentils, beans and pasta. We have basil, parsley, rosemary, garlic chives and mint in the garden – so that’s a good thing. Plus, there is one small capsicum nestled in amongst some flowers – a result of composting!

So, it’s soup, soup and more soup. Yum! But will we be sick of soup after a month or so?

There are eggs. Omelettes, fried eggs, scrambled eggs on toast (for any meal, no matter what) another nourishing treat.

In the freezer there are a few (raw) chicken thighs, a few (cooked) chicken wings and plenty of bread in several guises. We won’t starve.

To our daughter who is wanting to buy supplies for us, I am saying, no thanks and please stay at home yourself!

It is now that the gravity of COVID-19 is really hitting us. It will be challenging.

The minor sacrifices that we are making are nothing compared to what is ahead.

Writing about changes to my menu is a distraction from the seriousness I feel. We may make micro changes to our lives but it is the major changes that will happen to everyone’s lives throughout the entire world that we will have to face.

Communities, governments, countries, economies will all have to change – now - and when we reach ‘the other side’.
Let’s hope that ‘reaching the other side’ is not in the Biblical sense for too many.

Stay safe. Stay home!

Isolation - One day at a time.

23/3/2020

In the supermarket last week, the shelves where toilet paper should have been were completely empty. According to the ‘experts’ the reason for panic buying of this item has something to do with helping up feel safe. (?)
But shelves that usually held stacks of flour were also empty. What was causing that? Do people think they might start baking cakes once they are isolated? That doesn’t seem logical. I mean, if you are isolated from friends and family, there will be little need to bake a batch of scones for afternoon tea (for example). So why the hoarding baking ingredients?
_________________________________________________________________________________

But here: Apparently, we are quarantined. Those who fear they have been in contact with a COVID-10 must be self-isolated, while those (like us) who are simply (simply?) staying away from danger and avoiding contact with the virus are considered in quarantine.
Thus, we are quarantined.
We are taking this very seriously, as we all should.
We will not be going out anywhere near other people for however long it takes. Knowing this situation may last six months or more, it is a difficult decision – but a decision that had to be made, nevertheless.

And now I am trying to imagine - and plan for - the near future.
First, let’s consider eating – a most important and necessary daily occupation.

Beginning with BREAKFAST:
I usually start my day with a piece of fruit, maybe a banana, or an apple. Sometimes a pear.
So, here’s the first problem. I cannot go out every couple of days to buy fresh fruit. There are currently two bananas in the fruit bowl. On checking the fridge, I find 16 small apples. No pears or any other fruit.
As there are two of us in this house and we must share (of course) there is enough breakfast fruit for nine days. That’s all.
After eating a piece of fruit, I usually make a slice of toast, which I slather with butter and raspberry jam – always raspberry (I’m a creature of habit).
In the freezer there are two loaves of sliced wholemeal bread, so that could make toast for more than a few days.
There is ‘spreadable’ butter (2 containers) and a newish jar of raspberry jam. How long will those items last?
If they are not replaced, I will rely on the packs of butter put aside for baking (probably won’t do much of that…but, then again?) As for the jam replacement, there’s a half-used jar of Vegemite and about a centimetre of (elderly) peanut butter somewhere.
In the fridge, there’s an almost full bucket of honey and, in the pantry, a jar of golden syrup. So, if the bread holds out, there’s stuff to spread on the toast.
However, if the bread is all used and we can’t go out, the only thing to do is to make more! But I know there is no yeast in the pantry. Now, how does that recipe for sour dough bread go? You don’t need yeast for that – only flour and water (and patience). Note to self: search Google for sour dough recipe.

But I could always make pancakes to have in place of toast.

Perhaps there’s one small positive result of this isolation: We (well, I, anyway) might be forced to change otherwise set and boring ways.
__________________________________________________________________________

So far, I have enough fruit and bread for just over a week. Yikes…this is not going to be easy!
The breakfast cup of tea is not too big a problem. I make a pot of tea which lasts nearly all day, just by pouring a small amount of tea (from the pot) into a mug and filling it with boiling water. So, a packet of tea goes a long way. (Usually!)
_____________________________________________________________________________

It has taken a page of writing to work out breakfast while in quarantine.
Next edition will be lunch and (maybe) dinner sorted. (or not).
This over-the-top planning is another way for me to try and make light of a situation that is becoming more dramatic - and scary - by the day.

Time to panic?

17/3/2020

Am I being a panicked wuss or am I being sensible?

We’ve cancelled our 15-day road trip from Queensland to Victoria. It seemed a bit risky.
With one of us (not me!) with a chronic lung condition, the thought of being over a thousand kms from home if CORVID-19 struck would not be fun.

We will ‘self-isolate’ for as many weeks as we think is wise and then we’ll rethink our plans. There is so much information – some real, some false – being issued via all modes of media. The one fact remaining is that the exposure risks are increasing rapidly and treatment is scarce.

Only one thing to do now and that is isolate ourselves as much as possible.

We have enough chicken stock in the freezer to make soup for quite a while. There is pasta and rice aplenty in the pantry - and ingredients for pancakes if we become desperate.
Lemons are ripening on the tree.

However, sadly, I do not think this catastrophe will be over much before September.

Will I have anything to write about? Or will my new jotting notebook remain empty?

Time will tell.
Stay safe everyone.

Time to stop worrying for a couple of weeks.

14/3/2020

I’m done with coronavirus; the scares and misinformation. I’m done with crazy toilet-paper-hoarding stories.
I’m done with politics...one rule for them, other rules for us. I’m done with dishonesty and lying. I’m done with inequality and greed.

I’m off on a road trip to stop worrying for a while.
No blogging for a couple of weeks.
No rants and raves over politicians - or worrying about COVID-19. No smart remarks about people hoarding ridiculous items yet still attending crowded football games.
Just relaxing, driving and visiting other quiet parts of Australia. And, of course, seeing friends and family ‘down south’.

We are planning a trip, from Queensland to Victoria, taking about 15 days in total. We will stay in country cabins and Air BNBs along the way.
Nothing but fresh air.
Hopefully we’ll be able to spend a small amount of money in cafes and overnight-stays in bushfire affected areas as we go along. Not much help, but something.

In Victoria we plan to catch up with friends and relatives – but not in crowded public places.

Blogs will be stopped for a while. But, hopefully, once we’re back home, I will have a note-book full of short jottings from observations along the way. Not quite a diary, but vignettes to share.
I have even bought a new note book for the purpose. (That’s it in the picture).

Back in a couple of weeks.
Stay safe and virus free.

Trees - our essential lifesavers.

5/3/2020

The day came when a big willow tree, that had stood proudly in our family back yard for many years, had to be cut down.

I was eight years old, living in suburban Melbourne, Victoria, with my parents and four siblings.

Norm-from-next-door, had won his battle. He had complained about willow tree roots showing up in his lawn and he wanted our tree gone.
My parents had stalled for some time until Norm-from-next-door showed how serious he was by pouring petrol on any willow tree root that appeared in his place. (Perhaps ‘Round-Up’ had yet to be invented).

On the day, Norm-from-next-door was grinning as he clambered over the fence into our yard with various chopping and sawing equipment preceding him.
‘Oh, well’, I thought, in a childish way, ‘I suppose I had better get into the spirit of today’s action’ and found a small axe in the shed and, with it, began to chop at the tree trunk.

My mother tapped on the kitchen window and called for me to come inside. She seemed upset.
‘Please Darling’, she said, ‘That tree has been such a good friend to us, it’s not good for you to be hurting it like that.’

Hurting it? I felt chastised. But, more than that, I felt guilty and totally regretted my actions. I looked at the tree through the window and saw it with new eyes. I thought about the lovely times we had enjoyed playing under it; even picnicking under it. I realised that there would be no more tree climbing—and our tree-branch-anchored swing would no longer be there for happy (meditative) swinging – something I often did to escape the noise and clutter of indoor family life.

I think it was then that utter regret, plus a new thoughtfulness activated my love of trees.

(It wasn’t until many decades later that I discovered that planting weeping willow trees in Australia was not a good idea, due to the damage they caused as they clogged and spread into rivers and waterways, but our willow was never in danger of doing that).

Our willow tree was, on that memorable Saturday, eventually turned into a pile of logs — long and large— with piles of remnant autumn-dumped leaves.
We kids posed for a photo sitting on the largest piece of its rough trunk. And that was that.

And now, I think back to that tree as I walk in a nature park near where I currently live—over a thousand kilometres from my childhood home.
I walk to see gum trees. I look up into their magnificent branches and even take photos (just for me) if I see a tree top that inspires me.

I love trees.

The horror of seeing forests cut down for any purpose is constantly at the front of my mind. The devastation of this summer’s bushfires makes me shudder at the apocalyptic damage wrought.

The urgent need to plant billions more trees in order to save the planet is also constantly in my mind.

I would love to be a billionaire and be able to pour billions into reforestation.
We, as a nation and we, as people of the world have one chance to save our planet—and one of the most urgent actions is to plant trees.

But it’s no use just going to drought affected areas of treeless plains and poking saplings in the ground.
Trees need each other to survive and trees need what’s below the ground as well as water and sunshine and soil.
Trees are social beings. Trees have a symbiotic relationship with many creatures—insects, animals and birds.
They also depend on relationships with fungi around their roots; important fungi that transfers essential minerals.

In an article by Ricky French in a Weekend Australian Magazine from last October, he laments the tragedy of dying eucalypts in the Monaro countryside. He mentions ‘companionship’ and how trees possess ‘a sophisticated network’ below ground. ‘They feed each other, pumping sugar into struggling neighbours…’ They can communicate danger, ‘such as insect attack, via chemical and hormonal messages…’
French writes, ‘When those social networks are cut off, trees lose their ability to communicate.’

They also lose the ability to survive.

This all boils down to the fact that trees need other trees—and plenty of them. Leafy canopies protect them—and the underground, almost mysterious, symbiotic relationship between tree roots and the helpful subterranean fungi makes for healthy forests.

Trees are similar to humans. In order for us to flourish, we need other people and nourishment. For trees to flourish they need tree neighbours and companionship. Just like us!

If we are to plant more trees —and we MUST — it is more productive to plant outwards from existing forests and tree stands than starting in a treeless patch of countryside. Plant them where their helpful neighbours already exist.

I envisage outwardly extended rain forests all over the world. I dream of the borders of every earthly forest slowly and carefully expanding outwards by kilometres.

My love of trees which began in my childhood and which led me to plant dozens of eucalypts on my one-acre block of yore, has made me determined to see in others a desire to cultivate trees. We need trees for beauty and their positive influence on our lives but mainly, right now, we need trees to help save the planet. Trees by the millions, and trees in the best possible place for the best possible outcome— before it is too late.

from Science News U.S.:
‘In and around the tangled roots of the forest floor, fungi and bacteria grow with trees, exchanging nutrients for carbon in a vast, global marketplace’

from last week’s news:
‘Experts say between 2008 and 2017, Australia's major cities lost 2.6 per cent of their vegetation’.

From The Guardian, 17.10.2019:
‘More than 27,000 hectares, nearly 100 times the size of Sydney’s central business district, were cleared for agriculture in the latest year for which data is available. Most of the clearing has been between Moree and the Queensland border. If native forestry is included, the figure rises to 58,000 hectares.’

Plant native trees and have an impact in the battle against climate change.
A quick on-line search will show organisations that tell how you can help.

Money, Money, Money. Millions and Billions

22/2/2020

I don’t understand millions. Even more so, I don’t understand BILLIONS.

Last weekend a magnificent concert was conducted in the ANZ Stadium in Sydney to raise money for people and communities that suffered horrific losses due to this summer’s bushfires.

Here we had: “Fire Fight Australia, concert for National Bushfire Relief”.
And, what a concert it was!
Top performers from Australia and overseas gave of their time, their energy and their love to make the night a roaring success.
Wasn’t k.d.lang amazing? (To mention just one).

Over 70, 000 people attended and had the time of their lives. Others (like me) watched the concert on television and marvelled at the performances and the generosity of so many gifted artists.

At the conclusion of TEN hours of music, it was announced that the magnificent sum of $9 million had been raised.
Everyone was impressed and so very thankful.

Nine MILLION dollars is a huge amount and will go well to help distressed people and communities.

But, Hang on a minute. This is nine MILLION dollars, right?

And yet our ‘esteemed’ government spent 4.65 BILLION DOLLARS in the lead up to last year’s election. Mostly as a boost to maintain power.
So, doesn’t the NINE MILLION DOLLARS raised for fire relief seem a bit, pathetically, small?

I don’t know about you, but 9 million compared the over FOUR BILLION shows a mighty gap.
All those zeros… 9,000,000 compared with 4,650,000,000. Really? Yes, really!

Let’s look at just a few of the ways those govt millions and BILLIONS were spent.
(Can’t see much bushfire assistance).

One of the most repellent govt spends was the $185 million (185,000,000) to open the Christmas Island detention centre. (That’s well over 20 times the money raised for the fire relief…X 20 times!)

And, remember the security company (Paladin) that scored $423 million…was that money used appropriately? Manus Island, remember?

How about the $30million given to Rupert Murdoch’s Foxtel? (Admittedly that wasn’t last year). try and explain that!

And, the $444 million to a dodgy Barrier Reef Foundation. What’s happening there?

The ‘HelloWorld’ travel company that sucks up federal govt contracts scored a juicy few BILLION dollars. (at least one billion, some estimate as much as three Billion…helped along by its donations to LNP and paying for certain politicians’ holidays).

And, remember Wesfarmers supposed plan to ‘advance Indigenous Australia’, wasn’t that $15 million? How’s that going? A company whose yearly profits are around 4.5 BILLION, gains $15 million from the govt the DAY BEFORE last year’s election. Fishy? Fair? Or, what?

Then there’s $220 million for ‘regional job investment’ (strongly criticised by the Auditor General)– anyone heard how that’s progressing? A bit dodgy, especially because the areas awarded this money were in Coalition held electorates, not where it was needed.

Old mate Barnaby and ‘well done’ Angus tied up in the equally dodgy water buy-back scheme that cost the govt a mere $80 million. Where’s that money now?

Is the $9 million raised for fire relief still sounding amazing?

Poor old Bridget lost (well, not really) her job because of the $100 million Sports Infrastructure program. Then, a little later, suddenly up pops another $150 Million sport’s thing – something to do with water safety and female change rooms that caused 120 swimming pools to be built, some of which were not even wanted - and one community didn’t even have space to dig a hole for one, but, there it was, “here’s a pool for you, vote for us!”

I can’t even be bothered adding up the dollar amount for these few examples I have listed.
Suffice to say, they are part of the stated 4.65 BILLION DOLLARS spent by the government, mostly in the past 12 months.

And, now the coffers are empty.

How much will be given to help the fire ravaged communities, when all the $$$$ have been spent on funding to help keep this govt in power?

How much more of the allocated funding for the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) can be siphoned off (“repurposed for drought relief” to quote govt.) - to try and maintain a now almost non-existent surplus? Is that fair, do you think?

As I said at the start, I do not understand millions, whether it’s dollars or occupants of ants’ nests. But I do know that a MILLION is a hell of a lot of $$$$ - or ants.

I am an ordinary person who budgets in the tens or sometimes hundreds of dollars, Yes, I do understand the cost of things. I know that simply living costs a lot.
I know that a visit to the dentist or optometrist can make me feel ill when a total sum of hundreds of dollars is mentioned.
I have, on occasion, had to fork out a thousand dollars on something very serious and, in the case of buying a house, hundreds of thousands. Yikes!

But, a MILLION? Never. Does not even compute with my brain, let alone my bank balance.

That’s why the $9 MILLION raised in last weekend’s concert seemed fantastic. A wonderful boost for very needy people.

And, don’t get me wrong. $9,000,000 is fantastic!
I thank everyone involved in that great gesture of giving.

But then I can’t help but ponder what BILLIONS of dollars might be able to do if aimed in the right direction.

PS: I apologise for the image above that depicts NZ money. I made a mistake when gathering an accompanying pic and am too lazy to alter it!

Forget political gloom and doom. There are other things to think about!

14/2/2020

Last week I posted a blog full of disjointed whingeing about politicians’ rorts and their lying. Well, never-ending corruption, actually.

I have been absolutely fed up with all that was/is wrong with the people who are pretending to be in charge of this country. I also am sick of myself, as all I do is whinge and feel ineffective in amongst the awful stuff that is the current state of affairs – in this country and across the world.
I apologise to anyone who may have read my last blog. That sort of writing from me is about to stop!

I have written so often about inequality that I have almost run out of accompanying Google Images of empty un-balance scales!
It is time I left political and other world worries for a while.

I will, for a while, only briefly scan Twitter. I will also only briefly scan online daily headlines from ABC, The Age and The Guardian.
I will try to not get too mad when I watch the ABC News at night, as I sip a brandy.
When the 7:30 program comes on, I will leave the room and make a cup of tea whenever a lying politician appears.
That way I hope to retain some needed calm.

Meanwhile at ground-zero on the home-front:
The dog is not well. Her back legs are no longer working and she is seemingly unaware of her surroundings. At almost sixteen years of age, I’m sure she is nearing the end of her life.
I am reluctant to make a call to the vet, as I feel sure that it will not be a happy prognosis and the ‘treatment’ offered will be more final than I can bear at the moment, so I will continue to try some doggie-type home based palliative care for her. I am hoping that the steroid injection I have had in my hip will stand me in good stead, as I try to lift a 12 kg Cavoodle on and off her bed.
It’s all a bit messy.

To add to all this canine patient care, it has been raining for a week. Not just sprinkles, but continuous tropical downpours, averaging over 100 mm per day. The ground is awash and the back yard is underwater. Not a helpful situation with a seriously ailing dog who needs to squat on the grass (with my help) every so often…otherwise it’s inside or on the veranda!

Oh, happy days!
Life has its ups and downs.

For contrast, here’s an upper—totally off-topic but up for discussion…

I offer one of my parenting observations to perhaps provide some irrelevant cheer:

There are times when parents have to temporarily relax some of their rigid rules and principles--with wild abandon. A child’s birthday party is one such occasion. The one time a small child, who is raised on healthy food and healthy habits, should be able to ‘run amok’ (in a dietary way) with permission, is on his or her birthday. It adds to the day’s excess of fun, creating delight and happy memories.
In my mind it is their right!

Lying - The 'new normal'

8/2/2020

Hello to all truth-seeking people. Sorry this is a long post, but ,have you noticed that lying seems to be all the go lately? I’m about to write about lying. Seems it’s de rigueur today – especially in politics.
As hot weather and bushfires are now referred to as ‘the new normal’, it seems as if LYING is also ‘the new normal’!
Australian politicians have been caught out lying a lot lately —and yet there seems to be an acceptance of the habit, with precious little being done to curb it.

So many lies. So many potential scandals and yet we, the everyday people, appear powerless to stop such behaviour. Sure, if there is an election, we can vote out politicians who lie…but that opportunity for us here in Australia will not be available for another two years. Can we survive?

At least, in U.S., anyone who feels they have been lied to by their leader will have the chance to vote him out in November of this year. And, surely that’s what will happen. (Hopefully!)

Everyone knows Donald Trump is famous for lying - and denying it. He lies so much that there is a ‘Fact Check’ website (PolitiFact) set up to record his statements on a “Truth-o-meter”. It’s a busy site, with a fairly big Trump lie added more often than once a week.

Over in UK, Boris Johnson hasn’t had a chance to reach Trump’s standard yet. His lies mostly concern Brexit of course. We wait to see how his pattern of lying develops, as I’m sure it will.

I guess if we stopped to check on most other world leaders we would discover lying in varying degrees.

Is it only politicians and so-called leaders who lie so much? I suspect not. But how terrible if lying is accepted as an almost legitimate mode of operation.

But, back to Australia and to our (non) esteemed PM, Scott Morrison.
An enormous amount of his (and his colleagues’) lies have merely (merely!) concerned ignored promises; that is, mostly promised reforms that have not seen the light of day. So many promises, so many never heard of again, including that important Federal Integrity Commission body “with teeth” that was announced in December of 2018 and yet still nowhere to be seen, apart from an occasional argument about it.
Remember this? “On 13 December 2018, the Australian Government announced that it will establish a Commonwealth Integrity Commission (CIC) to strengthen integrity arrangements across the federal public sector.
The CIC will be a centralised, specialist centre for the investigation of corruption in the public sector. It will also work with agencies to build resilience to corruption and bolster agency capability to detect, deter and investigate corrupt conduct”. (Aus Govt Attorney General’s Dept).

I don’t intend to even mention names such as Angus Taylor…

But here’s a couple of examples of (what I’d refer to as) lies of neglect:

Promises have been made about improving the Aged Care system (so far it seems as if it is, instead, being dismantled by stealth – as observed with Medicare).

The govt. was supposed to fix up the corrupt banking sector, after the Banking Royal Commission— to which they were dragged kicking and screaming. (Concluded in Feb., 2019). Only a tiny amount of the 76 recommendations have been even slightly dealt with.

These are but a tiny example of promises not kept.

Then there are the actual LIES.
Recent lies about rorting have been widely reported. Money has been thrown around, aimed at marginal seats as a means of buying votes. Generous payments, using taxpayers’ money worked really well for Morrison’s party. Hopefully, as more and more evidence of this rorting surfaces, we, the so called ‘Quiet Australians’ will see something done about it. (Don’t hold your breath!)

Another (secret) sports grant has just popped out in the open - $150,000,000 - funding that has an extremely fishy odour about it!
By the way, that’s not 150 thousand $$, it’s 150 MILLION dollars– said to be for something about ‘water, & increasing female participation in sports’ – or some other made-up thought bubble, that went towards 14 swimming pools…

In an ABC report today, “A Queensland community on the receiving end of controversial federal funding to build a new school swimming pool says it did not want the pool anyway.”
What!?
And there are other similar tales, including a tidal pool in Port Macquarie, that no one asked for.

As for Morrison’s countless other lies – they infiltrate every one of his statements.
One of my favourite lies (small but transparently laughable), was (if anyone was listening) at the time of his infamous Hawaii holiday. The excruciatingly badly timed holiday was carried out under a cloak of secrecy. At first, when asked why it had to be secret, Morrison’s answer was that he wanted to give his children a surprise.
A mere week later, when asked why he chose to go to Hawaii at that particular time, he said that he had promised his children they would go.
So, which was it? Did his kids not know, so that it was a surprise? Or did they know and would have been disappointed if the trip was cancelled? All very minor, you might think but lies like that slip out so effortlessly.

And what an excellent idea it was to holiday then, as bushfires raged!
Perhaps being caught out was more the problem!

And good old Murdoch media is along to help ScoMo at every stage.
News Corp’s papers (and TV) have continually supported Morrison and the LNP in its untruths. It’s a weird set up. Does Murdoch have some sort of ‘world domination’ urge? Or is it just his dislike of anything resembling a Labor Party?

Way back in 2013, there were serious reports of Murdoch papers lying about Climate Change (in a study by Wendy Bacon). This has continued relentlessly.
That Climate Change is happening has been denied by the Murdoch Media for years – and yet they claim that they don’t deny the facts.

Well, who’s lying now?

Last Friday several hundred protestors could be seen (physically) lying in the street outside News Corp’s Sydney Office. Their message was simply something like ‘You’re lying here, so we’ll lie here also!’ Good tactic, with probably zero effect.

We can complain. We can lie in the gutter. We can write things on Face Book, or Twitter, or to the newspaper. We can wear a T-shirt with a slogan. But I fear it will have little effect.
Lying is here to stay.
But, is it?

Interestingly, only yesterday it was reported that “Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has been knocked by a "sluggish Australian economy".”
Hopefully, it’s not ‘the sluggish Australian economy’ that is decreasing its profits, but a more enlightened populace who are no longer buying or watching their products; no longer willing to accept the lies.

Lies from the media and lies from politicians, as huge amounts of money changes hands, as nothing less than bribes— from and to the current government. (Hello, Clive Palmer).
It is corruption that can no longer be denied.

I could go on and on about lies and how dangerous and disappointing they are. It is sad that lies form a big part of political manoeuvring these days.
Not much of a good example to be setting for anyone —young or old.

The late Cambodian leader, Norodom Sihanouk, once had something to say about lying. He said:
‘Time will inevitably uncover dishonesty and lies; history has no place for them.’

Sadly, I’m not so sure!
We shall see.