September 24, 2024
Off to Turramurra this morning where the trees looked wonderful and will look even better if we get the forecast rain. Had morning tea with Rosanna on her delightful back deck and admired the gilded mirrors she had installed on the wall, amazed to find that she made them herself many years ago, cutting up mirrors into tiny pieces, mounting them and then gilding the complex frames. She is a wonderful artist in all sorts of genres: portraiture, watercolours, pencil drawings, crafts and cooking. I dips me lid.
Reading John’s RNSH discharge summary I was unimpressed with much of it, such as ‘He was admitted to XX under XX for XX’, and also the part that describes ‘a pressure injury stage 1 lower limb Achilles’, that neither I nor his nurses can find. But one line caught my attention: that was that his heart failure is ‘secondary to cardiomyopathy, which is secondary to chemotherapy’. I knew he had cardiomyopathy but assumed it was just age related. So both the Alzheimers and the heart failure are gifts of chemo, I knew about the former but no one has ever mentioned that fact in terms of his heart problems. Informed consent lacking there, but I’m also aware that he’d have been dead long ago except for it. He told the head nurse today that I am a ‘boss’ which probably relates to my encouragement to use the walker, he was always proud to say that he was one of the few residents there who didn’t need one. The last three weeks have put a significant dent in his self-image and the walker issue hasn’t helped that at all. Sometimes I feel more like his mother than anything else.
I did look up some of the council election results for this area, which was pretty depressing as it showed a general 60% for the Libs with about 20% each for Labor and the Greens. So every time I say hello to someone outside my house there’s a 60% chance that they voted for everything I abhor. Dear me, that’s a depressing thought.
September 25, 2024
Today I got back on the waggon literally with another bus tour. I had it in mind that we were going to a venue in North Sydney but after morning tea at tables in Parramatta Park (ah bliss, the bats hanging everywhere made my day) we went to Granata’s at Canada Bay for lunch. I always pocket the cheese and biscuits we get for morning tea and just have the drink, so as not to spoil my lunch. This time I was very glad I did as the Prawn and Tomato Spaghetti I had ordered, which could have been anything from ugh to divine, was very much up the divine end with big fresh king prawns and cherry tomatoes, not a cloggy sauce. A strange utterance from one of the olds, someone I’ve found to be a smart woman in all respects, was the question when we pulled up in the park: ‘Is it safe to get out of the bus here?’ which made me think that getting fearful is a sorry part of ageing. There was a touchy moment at morning tea when the only male passenger on the bus suddenly railed about the Israelis and their US supporters to which one of our number replied ‘careful there, I’m a Jew’ which doesn’t really answer the issue but put an end to the discussion. They sat at different tables for lunch. I have noticed before that many of the volunteers are politically quite conservative, with one noted exception, today discussing Ray Hadley’s radio show and all the good he does in pointing the finger at those doing wrong in the community. I decided to stay mum, despite the fact that he was a regular customer in the shop and I knew his attitudes all too well. I deserve a star for staying out of two arguments today.
I just noted an ambulance screaming down my street and mused on the fact that they are always going one way with sirens and lights, down to Aminya, the nursing home down the hill. Never once has one come charging back with lights and sirens……
My Hills Police Facebook page had a post today about a modified Nissan Patrol pulled up on Norwest Boulevarde yesterday with the driver charged, due to a number of defect notices. Unusually there were 398 comments beneath it so I decided to have a look. They were overwhelmingly negative towards the bobbies, which is quite a reversal to the usual near universal support. Mostly they complained about what they saw as petty charges being dealt with while there are so many more important things that the police should be spending their time on. Also there was criticism that the driver was pulled over because he was a young P plater. A number of comments referred to the charge relating to the car having ‘a metal plate obstructing the passenger airbag’ and pointing out that this modal doesn’t have a passenger airbag! So the mock number plate reading Milwaukee M18 Fuel simply covered just a flat part of the dashboard, ouch, it looks like that charge may need to be dropped.
September 26, 2024
I had a check on the Police Facebook page to see if the latest posts got as many negative comments as the one yesterday, but it was back to the usual 15-30 comments, nearly all positive. So it seems the blokes were out in force to defend the right to alter one’s car, laws be damned. Interesting that there are now over 500 comments on the one about the modified car.
I have been trying all week to alter John’s IgG appointment at Nelune for October 30, because I have something else on that day. Normally on the rare occasion I make changes it has been fixed up immediately by the person answering the phone but this week, if they answer at all, I am told that only a senior person can alter appointments and I’ve been given her number. I’ve rung 12 times so far today with no pickup but I know the phone works, as sometimes it comes up as engaged. Half their luck.
I have just spent many (too many) hours trying to restore some of my previously wrongly deleted blogs. What a terrible task it is, slow and boring, but it must be done while I have some free hours. However now the whole of the retrieved stuff is coming up above the current posts and I have not a clue how to alter that.
Hehehe….deleted the old Musings 2 and replaced it with Musings…2. Fooled the system.
September 28, 2024
Just wrote an entry for yesterday and today, half a dozen paragraphs, pressed Update and it disappeared altogether. I have no idea why or where it went.
September 29, 2024
The short version of the previous two days posts: John seems a lot better; wheelchair delivered; went to Farmer’s Market at 9.30 am and spent nil, due to La Tartine having sold out of bread, egg man sold out of eggs; and my favourite veggie stall having permanently gone due to too much work on their farm. Oh, and getting a bill for nearly $500 for John’s ride in the ambulance, a bit of a fright at first despite the fact that he’s exempt as a pensioner. I hope whoever received these posts in Lower Mongolia found them of interest.
At 2 am today there was a blackout, accidentally discovered when I tried to turn on the bedside lamp. My first inclination was to check the meter box outside but decided against it and instead Googled blackouts in this area but turned up nothing. Then of course I couldn’t sleep worrying about the blackout and its causes. But it was genuine, not just me, as the burglar alarm’s emails kindly informed me in the morning, 15% of this area was down, no reason given. In India we expected numerous blackouts every day, often racing to do things like boil a jug or iron once the power came back on and before it went off again.
September 30, 2024
Yesterday I had a lovely day out with Davina and Millie, including high tea at The Tearoom at QVB. The food was well in excess of requirements so Dav had brought a plastic box for leftover cakes to take to Louis and I asked for a paper one for the little birthday cake they produced at the end, after I was full, and the leftover sandwiches which did me for dinner last night. Curried egg on white bread and salmon, avocado and sun-dried tomatoes on brown were just the shot. The man who served us was a darling and Millie related to him so well, high-fiving as he came past our table and shaking hands with her and calling her by name on arrival and departure.
Visited Heather this arv to take some food and boy is she suffering with the shingles. She had a wet towel wrapped around her head and an icepack around her neck, trying to quell the pain which only eases briefly after she takes the meds, so sleep is difficult and even sitting up is a trial. It’s a bastard of a disease and she could be like this for a long while.
October 1, 2024
My shared talk with Alan at First Saturday this week is looking a bit shaky as I’ve come down with the dreaded breathing problems which I used to have every winter but now apparently only get when I have to speak. If it doesn’t improve Alan may have to read my notes, we shall see.
Making a pot of soup for Heather and David which I’ll whip round there when it’s cooked in an hour. I got a list of meds from Sue’s brother Stephen who now wishes that he’d heeded advice to hit the pain heavily with drugs right from the get-go. He’s now 10 months in and still the doc is gradually upping them, while Sue’s daughter, an anaesthetist and therefore pain specialist, had counselled to hit it hard in the beginning and then taper down. I don’t see how Heather could survive 10 months as she is, so hopefully her situation works out differently.
I sent a letter to the Herald last night about this crazy idea of threatening people for carrying a Hezbollah flag or a photo of its slain leader. It’s a dicey position to take. As I said in the letter: Those of us who go back far enough to remember demonstrations in favour of imprisoned Nelson Mandela would also remember being accused of supporting a terrorist. However there was never a suggestion that we should be charged for doing so. Both government and opposition need to remember the old saying that one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter and tread carefully. But both major parties seem to love this strongman stuff. By all means harass and arrest those plotting acts of violence, but holding a flag, pffft.
Cecilia commented this morning that I was ‘so good for your age’ which is a worry as she doesn’t know how old I am so clearly I look old! She said that she had commented to another nurse that ‘if we miss anything Maureen will pick it up’, I suppose I should be glad as some of the residents at Gracewood could be younger than me.
I was browsing through Domain as I am wont to do and realised that there are few listed properties that I would want to swap my house for, even multi-million dollar ones. Either I am getting fussier or else more satisfied with my lot. Yes there are some places overlooking the ocean that are lust-worthy, but many others have negatives related to the areas they are in, the size of the rooms, the decor, the amount I’d have to do to them, that they just don’t tempt me to move at all.
October 2, 2024
77, sheesh, that’s a horrifying number, but better than the alternative as they say.
John wanted to take me for lunch today and our original choice would have proved too far for him to walk, so we chose another option right across the road from where our bus comes in, Glass Brasserie at the Hilton. I’m so pleased we went that way as our meal was excellent, the service was great and the room is a lovely one to be in. John went for Steak, Chips and Bearnaise while I had Humpty-Doo Barramundi with Sauce Vierge and Asian Greens, with a shared side of Grilled Asparagus, Pecans and Feta. Both of us had the Sticky Date Pudding for dessert. Being a gig of the next table (in the sense of an observer; one who stares curiously; a detective; forgetting the other meaning of a simpleton or a fool) I noticed that all six of them had Coravin wines by the glass, a Boroli Nebbiolo from Piemonte Italy at $39 for 150 ml. Why you would not buy a bottle? I asked myself. I’m not sure, but they were all of a mind, and it certainly looks impressive when it’s being squirted out of the Coravin! One ordered Scotch Fillet steak and one by one they all followed suit, at $62 each. plus sides. I mention this as our meals from the lunch menu were $38 each for a main and a dessert, had I ordered the barra from the main menu it was $46 alone. One day I will sample the full menu there but today I was more than happy with what we had. Luke Mangan in jeans and a T-shirt wandered into the bar and helped himself to a glass of water.
I dragged John up to a jewellery shop in the QVB where Davina always admires a particular necklace in the window, just to see what it costs. The assistant explained that it is $2200 and I said that was way over what I was thinking, so he did some calculations and said he could do it for $1900. Still not interested, so we got to the ‘last price’ of $1500. He explained that the stones were natural tourmalines, mined in Colombia and then the boss arrived…..he took over explaining that he made the necklace himself from tourmalines mined in…..Burma! So I played ball and asked for the best price, we began at $2000 but were down to $900 before we left. How I wish I’d had a low few hundreds in cash in my wallet because I think I would have walked out with a very beautiful Christmas present for Dav, Colombian or Burmese or whatever the hell they are. They were pretty desperate for a sale and looked downcast as we left. I’d hate to be trying to make a quid in that building.
October 3, 2024
Today was Nelune day with an appointment with the haematologist at 12.45. So after I got John safely into the waiting room I walked down to meet Fran at Flour and Stone, a new place for me but somewhere Fran knows well. It is one hell of a bakery and we feasted on Leek and Gruyere Tarts, mmm. I was tempted to buy owner Nadine Ingram’s new cookbook Love Crumbs as a birthday present for myself (as if I haven’t been spoiled enough?). It was just released yesterday, but I kept my cash warm in my wallet. Fran bought one for her sister’s birthday though. I may yet relent, it is a serious baker’s heaven. Her previous one has too many recipes that I already have and way too much chocolate. I did buy a baguette though and dinner tonight will be the end of it filled with cherry tomatoes, salt and pepper, yum. I guess the bakery is about 2 km from the hospital so I powered back there to arrive in time for his doc to arrive, except she didn’t, at least I think that’s what happened as John couldn’t remember whether she had been or not! The discharge summaries I printed for her along with the new medication list had somehow disappeared and he couldn’t recall what he’d done with them, but after a thorough search of Nelune I went back to the waiting room and there they sat, he’d gone in when called and left them there. It’s getting to the point that I can’t let him carry any important papers as he won’t remember that he’s ever had them. It is so weird considering that yesterday over lunch he asked: Do you think the the rise of economic rationalism went in tandem with the rise of modernist architecture, which decries all decoration? This while looking out at the QVB.
Thinking back to our lovely lunch and the lovely Kieren, the sommelier who served us seeing we were at the bar. When I queried the workings of a Coravin he brought one over and explained how it pumps argon gas into the bottle forcing the wine out slowly through a needle piercing the cork, without letting any air in. Later he came with another version meant for screw top bottles, but that’s a bit confusing to me still. Kieren owns one himself so he can drink red wine without wasting a drop, although the gadget is worth over $400. I suspect however that he’s not drinking the $15 special from Aldi.
October 4, 2024
My recent onset of mental arithmetic difficulties meant I spent way too much time staring at two lots of capsicums in the fruit shop, one lot loose by the kilo and one lot in a net, to decide which was the better buy. In the end I just decided to buy the big bag full, part of which will go into the ratatouille for First Saturday tomorrow and with the rest I made Sweet and Sour Capsicums this morning to drop off to Heather for lunch along with a baguette from Flour and Stone yesterday. I see that their new cookbook has an introduction by Annie Smithers, whose recipes are always both fascinating and daunting, the two chefs are a good match in their penchant for finely detailed instructions from what I saw delving into the book yesterday. I was thinking back to the early days at Sydney Uni and doing chi squares on a calculator for hours because to have them done on a computer you had to take all the paperwork to the Computing Department and a nerd over there got around to the calculations in a couple of weeks, if things weren’t too busy. Now I can’t even remember the formula or what a chi square even measured! This follows on from accidentally turning up a copy of a paper I jointly wrote which was published in an international journal while I was working there, but now I cannot for the life of me work out what it all means. I’m sure at some point I will need to discuss this with Bob, but I’m not in a hurry.
After seeing two segments on 7.30 about the appalling treatment of residents in retirement villages, I just can’t get the victims (or the perpetrators) out of my mind. The overarching body, the Retirement Living Council, is an offshoot of the wretched Property Council, the mob who lobbied government to privatise building inspectors with disastrous results. In fact they soiled their own nest as now people only want to buy older buildings that were constructed before the changes, particularly when it comes to units. I made a submission to the parliamentary inquiry into all of this stuff and my criticisms of the Property Council made it into the report. I want to throw rocks, or worse, whenever I see their sleazoid faces on the teev.
October 5, 2024
While Alan is rehearsing and timing his part of our First Saturday presentation I haven’t had time to consider it much at all, so it remains as written. More focus was on getting John, making the ratatouille and preparing something towards dinner tonight with Sue. I was stunned to see Bob and Nancye turn up at FS, I had no idea that they were coming, along with about 20 others who were interested and asked a lot of questions, a couple of which I couldn’t answer because the information is embargoed. Although the court staff, legal people and court watchers know the answers, no one is permitted to discuss certain facts until that particular matter is over, possibly in November. Alan discussed a wrongful dismissal case, the Bruce Lehrmann defamation case and the ongoing antics of our bumbling criminal brother and once Auburn Deputy Mayor Salim Mehajer (probably not a good idea to be texting the other vehicle’s driver in the minutes before faking a car accident Salim). I discussed the inquest on the seaplane with six people aboard which crashed in Jerusalem Bay, the William Tyrrell inquest and subsequent trials of his foster parents for abuse of their remaining foster child and the Medich trial for the murder of the wealthy criminal Michael McGurk. I think they were all a good mix.
With dinner I cracked a bottle of 2014 Clonakilla Riesling which I bought a couple of years ago during a visit to their Murrumbateman winery. I had noticed a pricey 2024 bottle on the wine list at Glass and thought it was time to give this one a burl. I think I paid about $50 back then and the bottle shop price is now $144. Whatever of that, we all enjoyed a glass of it over a simple dinner.
October 6, 2024
Sue and John were drinking a cuppa in the loungeroom when I woke up, but I got around to doing a basic breakfast while we chatted. We’ve settled that I am going to Killcare the week after next as things stand.
My bathroom scales carked it so I Googled for a replacement. There were a few at Big W with a uniformly bad rating, all saying that your weight is different when you step off them and then step back on. So then I saw a few at K Mart, all with good ratings but when we got there I discovered that they all had to be linked to an app, can record weights of up to 12 people, blah blah. There was a 10 page book to set the thing up! Tried a couple of other shops and then retreated to Target where I found a simple scale in tasteful black glass for $15 (embarrassingly cheap) with no apps or body mass indices or whatever else, it just weighs you. Got it home only to discover that neither of us could open the battery compartment. Eventually I took it in to my free engineer next door, who had a screwdriver for the tiniest screw I’ve ever seen which held the battery compartment closed. It’s working fine but ridiculous that I will have to get Arvind every time the batteries go. I don’t know what some poor little old lady would do it she didn’t have an engineer next door, probably break the compartment open and then tape the batteries in.
This week I received a lovely 2025 diary from a cousin in Britain and a card with a birthday cake design bearing a Union Jack on top from my cousin in Spain, neither of whom have done something like this before. So counting Anne there were three birthday surprises from Pommyland relations (can I call Anne a relation? I’m not sure). Facebook has thrown up a few photos of birthdays past and one showed me beaming over two gifts, a book on finance and a bottle of whiskey. Strange that neither is something I remember getting and also that neither is something that I would normally enjoy, but I looked pretty happy and the benefactors are not in the photo so it’s a mystery.
October 7, 2024
I don’t know why I bothered trying to watch the ABC News and 7.30 tonight, I should have known better. 7.30 was 100% Israel and the news was 75% Israel and 25% football. (Why do they keep annoyingly asserting that Penrith’s four wins on the trot is unprecedented and unequalled and unrivalled? Sorry, I was a proofreader on Rugby League News in the 60s when St. George was in the process of winning ELEVEN grand finals in a row). Anyway a pox on the ABC on a few counts. But Australian Story and 4 Corners were worth waiting for, despite having to turn off the sound and read for the best part of an hour before they came on. I think Chris Minns is politically naive if he thinks his constant criticism of the pro-Gaza demonstrators is not going to harm his chances, even more so Albo whose election is so much closer. Neither of them were ever going to win in the Eastern Suburbs. Not that I think political considerations should trump moral ones, but they are on shaky ground both ways.
Finally finished listing the costume jewellery I had in a box for years, about half has sold and I’m hopeful about the rest as it’s so cheap. A funny jewellery-related occurrence today was Michelle sending me a picture of an earring that Kev found in the back of their car. It was the one I had lost months ago after a trip to Carol’s, but now I can’t for the life of me find its mate. I sometimes put little things as freebies on the shelf under the street library and perhaps that’s what I did with it. It certainly isn’t anywhere that I normally keep jewellery. Just proves that you should never throw anything out…..
I finally got around to speaking to Panetta’s about their giving away the Epoch Times at their checkouts. It annoys the shit out of me every time I shop there. So I wrote: “I am writing to you to ask why you are supporting the Epoch Times by having the papers available free at your checkouts? The paper is neither Chinese nor Australian, but is a far-right and anti-China publication run out of the US, and associated with the Falun Gong religion. In the US it stands accused in a Justice Department lawsuit that alleges it operates as a money laundering and cryptocurrency scam. Every time I go to your store in Baulkham Hills I wonder why you are handing this paper out and what it has to do with Australia or fresh fruit and vegetables for that matter. If the family who owns Panetta’s is in fact encouraging the Epoch Times’ campaigning for Donald Trump, as they do, I wonder if I should be supporting Panetta’s.” Happy to recycle what’s left of them if they decide to stop stocking it.
October 8, 2024
I had hoped to go to get a haircut and combine it with a social day out with John, but Martin was booked out till 4 pm so I have made a date for Thursday. (It would make perfect sense to keep him here from then till Sunday as we have plans for the following days, but I’m stymied by the one night a week rule, so I will have to waste time and petrol driving to and from Kellyville Thursday and Friday). This change of plans left me with opportunity to catch up here so I finally ironed all of the clothes I had previously washed after picking them up outside a house in Annangrove this past winter, knowing that if I donated them then they would likely be tossed as too summery. I am usually nervous about St. Vs versus the Salvos as I think the former are more inclined to toss things. In fact Bob told me just on Saturday about his son working in a Vinnies and seeing them accept boxes of books and then tip them straight into the recycle bin. But I had to weigh up petrol cost to get to the Salvos at Dural versus going to Vinnies just up the road, so I asked her to go through them all and return anything not suitable. I got none back so I have to trust her. Then I was feeling somewhat lost, so seeing my two solutions to that are to go to court or bake and it’s a nice cool day, I decided to do a cake to put in the freezer and no doubt I will be thrilled to discover it there for some future ‘bring a plate’ weeks or months from now.
Trawling my junk mail I discovered emails from both Sue and my computer fixer-upper. One wonders why the thing coughs and forgets that these are people I communicate with regularly in Sue’s case and rarely in Omar’s. This afternoon I got a call from Melbourne (it’s always from Melbourne if it’s a scam) and a great racket could be heard in the background from all the people harassing folks on the phone. It took a minute before she came to the phone and started waffling on about my Telstra account being suspended. I was busy baking and not feeling particularly patient so I just gave her a quick ‘Get fucked’ and went on my way, feeling somewhat better about the world in general for so doing.
October 9, 2024
I was dying to go through the book The Outback Court Reporter by Jamelle Wells, which is full of bad grammar, misspellings, errant apostrophes, word duplication, bad grammar and sentences like ‘Can regional health it ever be fixed’. I wanted to mark all the errors but then realised that I couldn’t remember where I got it from, perhaps it’s borrowed, so I had to restrain myself and instead write an email to ABC Books asking how on earth it went to press without being proofread. On another front, my emails and texts to the doctor’s surgery which regularly contacts me asking for my Medicare details have gone unanswered….and the texts persist. The email to Panetta’s regarding The Epoch Times hasn’t been answered as yet, I’m hoping that’s because they are busy putting them all in the recycling. They have a perfect right to espouse any religion, political stance or philosophy they wish, as I did when I had a business, but the clients also have the right to object and withdraw their custom if they feel strongly enough. When I had the shop I employed a regular customer to work there after she came in wanting a part time job and as a result got a couple of complaints about why I had employed the extreme right-wing secretary of the local Liberal Party branch. I’d had no idea of her connections and decided to stick with her appointment, to the dismay of the complainers. It did cause a bit of grief later when she refused to put out the Greens A-frame in front of the shop at election time, though I gave her a dispensation there, as I wouldn’t want to be putting out a Liberal one if I were working for someone else. We only parted company when I called in to the shop and found her spreading pages of political texts all over the desk while she worked on a course she was doing on the work of the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper and the Austrian economist Hayek. I pointed out that I was expecting her to be working while in the shop and not studying and she decided it was time to leave.
Reading a Seneca quote today reminded me why I love him so much: ‘Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by rulers as useful’. What were his dates? 4 BC to about 65 AD from memory and how far have we come since then? Not a millimetre. I distinctly remember my mother turning off the television in disgust in the 1960s when Norman Lindsay was being interviewed and expressed the view that god had no right to blame the crucifixion on our sins, nearly 2000 years before we were even born. I was only young but it planted the seed of doubt, clearly she didn’t turn it off quickly enough.
October 10, 2024
I’ve been thinking about the laws against the Nazi salute and the swastika symbol and it’s a tricky business legally I think. The idiot Jacob Hersant had his lawyer claim that he didn’t do a salute at all and then came out of court and said he did, will keep doing it and is happy to go to gaol for it. One way or the other my friend. I think I prefer to know who these buggers are rather than have them in the darkness. Then there’s the Nomad restaurant owner who drew an Israeli flag with a swastika on it instead of the Star of David and whose business is suffering as a result. If the reason for not allowing the symbol is to discourage Nazism, it makes no sense to charge a man who is making an ANTI-Nazi point surely? But these matters of law are above the pay grade of the bobbies who arrested him, though surely any lawyer worth their salt could get him off without too much trouble. If not then that law is an ass.
Last night I was rereading David Leser’s wonderful SMH article ‘I’m terrified and torn on this horrific anniversary’ which I had cut out on Monday. Latish in the evening I decided to contact him and congratulate him on the article. Minutes later I got a thoughtful and warm response saying in part: ‘What a lovely and generous message to receive as I leave my 95 year old mother’s place. She too cut out my story’. A short interchange followed and it made my night.
Still on Israel, I was fascinated to read the Washington Post article about the genesis of the pager and walkie-talkie bombs. They were designed and made years before the October 7 attacks in a piece of spycraft that will go down in the history books, in awe as well as in infamy.
A leading asbestos expert, Roger Willey, has said that the asbestos exposure of people caught in the aftermath of each of Israel’s bombing raids on Gaza can be compared to that around the World Trade Centre when it collapsed in New York City on September 11, 2001. He says: “I made a prediction then, in 2001, that more people would die from the asbestos-related diseases than were killed in the September 11 attacks. According to the World Trade Centre Health Program, 4,343 survivors and first responders have died from related illnesses since the attack compared to the 2,974 people who died on September 11. It’s going to be exactly the same in Gaza. Airborne concentrations [of asbestos] will be enormously high, and that is guaranteed mesothelioma,” he said, referring to a cancer that commonly forms in the lining around the lungs or abdomen. Apparently the ‘dust lady’ shown in the famous photo after the collapse of the Twin Towers died of asbestos-related stomach cancer in 2015. I had no idea of these appalling consequences after that attack, perhaps it was publicised in the US, or perhaps not, but it’s news to me. If 42,000 have been killed in Gaza, what will be the number of asbestos-related deaths? Possibly upwards of 63,000 bases on the US figures.
October 11, 2024
Sorting out my summer clothes, ironing them and relocating the winter ones to another wardrobe. I’ve so far relegated a pair of pants and a top to begin a new life via a charity shop, a big sacrifice for me. I do try to reduce the contents of this house but it’s a very slow process…. Last week I tried to empty out some of my rubber band collection in the kitchen drawer but couldn’t bring myself to do it, then John asked for a few rubber bands and I felt totally vindicated in having them.
When oh when will governments bite the bullet on dangerous dogs? Last year I went to an inquest into SEVEN deaths from dogs and an ethologist or animal behaviour academic testified that pitbulls and Staffordshire terriers are genetically prone to attacking, they were bred to fight and their genetics will out eventually. He said that they take the initiative and attack first, before they are threatened, and then only bite limbs in order to floor the victim as they always go for the throat in preference. He maintained that we can never be safe from them. In one case, the family had owned the dog for six years prior to the attack with no previous problems. They need to be compulsorily desexed until the breeds die out altogether. I’m hoping for the survival of the latest Queensland victim, but the next attack is just around the corner until these animals are banned altogether.
Yesterday in Manly I saw some Sea Mullet in a shop, a variety which rarely pops up in fish retailers out here, so I grabbed one lot for us and one for Heather, along with matching sides of avocado, cucumber and asparagus. But then on the way home John told me he’d gone right off fish as a result of what they cook at Gracewood. Mmm, I bet it’s basa, badly cooked. Today I asked him if I should cook it for myself tonight instead of for us tomorrow night, but he assures me that he’d like it cooked at home. So now I need to make it especially good so he will come back to eating fish when we go out or eat here. I once asked a fisherman why sea mullet is so rarely seen in shops and he said that he, and many fisherman, keep it for themselves as it’s such a tasty fish. He then sold me some from his personal freezer.
October 12, 2024
An old pal has been asking me to let him detail my car, a generous offer. Another request came yesterday so we went to his house this morning for the Big Detail. He set us up in front of a huge screen to watch a movie, with a giant glass vase full of Fantales, but as I’d already explained John can’t understand movies any more and soon asked ‘can’t I just look at the paper?’. So we went for a walk in his beautiful garden while he did a fabulous job on the car including cleaning the seats! We got wet bums coming home but will leave the doors open tomorrow and dry it all out.
Loved our sea mullet for dinner, on a bed of English spinach, the fish spread with a little goat cheese, garlic and dill and oven cooked with asparagus and cherry tomatoes. John has decided that he likes fish again, which is a relief. Buying some things at Aldi today I discovered that they now have serve yourself checkouts AND a surcharge for cards. Remember Bankcard and their advertising that it will never cost you a cent extra to use a card?
As expected all hell has fallen on the owner of the Nomad group for his political statement on Israel. Sending false restaurant reviews is dirty pool, though a bigger problem for him is that the Good Food Guide has banned him as has the organisation representing restaurants and bars. It really doesn’t pay to stick your head above the parapet, as he has belatedly discovered.
Thinking today about some astounding trials coming up: the woman who allegedly cut up her husband with a circular saw and dropped him in bags into many suburban rubbish bins, the man who is supposed to have poisoned his wife with Ant Rid and then lawnmower man (he looks like a darling in the photos) who reported his wife having had a nasty accident on the ride-on at 3.35 one morning. Do these people not know about advances in forensic science??? But so far I’ll give them all an A+ for originality.
October 13, 2024
After getting to sleep at 12.30 I was woken at 3.04 am by a scam text wanting me to fill in some form or other to claim my $430 bonus from Medicare. I thought it was John’s doctor’s practice wanting my Medicare details again and was hopping mad. So I couldn’t sleep as I was thinking about how I was going to ring and give her the rounds of the kitchen come morning. But when I read it more carefully at 6 am it was just a plain old scam which happened to also use the word Medicare.
John, Sue and I went to the farewell to Avila, the home of the Grail for the past 70 years. Good to see Alison, Ruth and Fran among many others there. Each of the three blocks of land is an identical size so there are quite a few options I would think: buy all three and restore the house as a family home (the least likely), buy all three, restore the house and then sell the blocks on either side at some time in the future, build a nursing home complex with Avila as a central part? Lots of possibilities but I hope the house is restored to its former glory as part of whatever option is taken. Got John back just in time for dinner and then brought Sue here before she headed off home.
October 14, 2024
What is it with me and night time contacts at the moment? Last night I was plain buggered and slept fine till a WhatsApp phone call came through at some ungodly hour. Thinking it was my daughter on a different phone, I did my best to answer it but it just kept showing ‘connecting….’ for a long time, but with no connection. So I tried to get back to WhatsApp messages but I was locked to the damned call. Eventually I discovered that the country code was Indonesia so I got a whiff of rat. Then a sign came up asking if I wanted to block the caller, which I did, and the app was immediately restored to rights. Victory.
At the First Saturday talk someone asked what grounds Bruce Lehrmann could possibly have for an appeal to Justice Lee’s defamation judgment. I said I didn’t know what his intentions were, but surmised that it might be to use the 1938 Briginshaw Principle. Blow me down in the press this morning that is exactly the grounds he is using. Briginshaw’s decision said that the more serious the allegation, the more substantial the evidence must be to to prove the allegation on the balance of probabilities. That is where Alan and I parted company at the time in our opinion of Justice Lee’s judgment, he thinks that Lee was justified and I think he failed to allow for the fact that the complainant was a proven liar in many respects in her evidence (something Lee acknowledged) and it was a risky judgment. While I am certainly not a Lehrmann fan, he deserves fair treatment under the law. You can’t convict him on the basis that he’s a cad.
Sometimes you read a recipe and the world stops temporarily, well it does for me anyway. That happened just now when I read O Tama Carey’s recipe for Spring Vegetables with Cashew Cream in the Saturday Paper just now. I already have the cashews soaking for dinner tonight as I just happened to have all the ingredients in the fridge. I can’t wait for dinnertime.