I am pleased that the New Zealand government is made of strong stuff.

Congratulations to New Zealanders and their affirmation of love, equality and freedom for same sex unions.


Having been in Auckland, New Zealand recently I read some very hostile proponents against same sex unions.

Similar to the propaganda in a lot of countries, likening same sex unions to the end of the world as we know it.

I am pleased that the New Zealand government is made of strong stuff.

A kindle a kindle, my kingdom for a kindle……………….

A kindle a kindle, my kingdom for a kindle……………….


As a long term techno holdout, I fear I may be the last person in Adelaide to get a kindle.

I just made it before the cut-off with digital telly.

My books are an addiction.

But unlike others, I am more than happy to share them around and send them on to new homes.

Are e -books a cheapening of writers work?

Who really gets paid?

Also how cheap is a $4.99 book when you have to pay over $300 for a kindle?!

The faultless Inspector George Gently.

Oh Joy!


Saturday night TV has found its feet again.

Last Tango in Halifax (ABC 1) is that rare thing.

Intelligent, funny and challenging drama.

No cardboard characters here.

The paradox of human relationships in public and private mode, are played out in the country dales and urban locales of upmarket Britain.

Followed by the faultless Inspector George Gently, which sadly has its final episode this Saturday (April 27th).

It seems a long time between drinks, but I am glad the ABC is on form here.

Kudo’s also to MAD AS HELL, yes they spell it in capitals.

It is hell funny!

Parenthood is the best and worst job in the world.

Parenthood is the best and worst job in the world. (Nikki, April 20th)


On shift 24 hours all day every day.

The emotional, social, spiritual and physicals needs of one or more little people your total responsibility.

Better get it right.

Finding the balance of too much time and too little time is over taken all too soon by visits and messages from afar.

I have found ways ‘in’ to secondary school via the library and school drama productions; they welcome you with open arms.

Just be there.

Thanks to Nikki again, for turning that spotlight on the everyday miracles and dilemmas of our world(s).

HHhH Reconstructions

Yes, it is post-modernist writing. The writer acknowledges their search, bias and referencing – up to a point.


It is all coloured by their own particular lens.

Trying to hunt out what may or may not have happened in a room 60 years ago can go the way of total fiction or a very good reconstruction.

Binet has a novelist’s eye for reconstruction.

He was especially good at this in the lead up to the assassination, as the assassins waited on the street in Prague.

The tension built, and he diverted us a number of times until I was so frustrated, as I wanted to know how it all went down.



Any way my other diversion is the knowledge that Hitler was on a cocktail of amphetamines.

http://contemporarynotes.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/hitler-amphetamines-and-the-history-channel/



It seems many soldiers and leaders were/are.

What do we leave behind?

What do we leave behind?


The immediate loss is huge.

But years down the track?

Religion and art are not just an addition to making sense of death. (Phillip Adams, April 27th)

They are why we have made it this far.

The physical possessions disperse, but art and spirit live on.



I must add my confession that I am not big on memorials.

My mother and father’s ashes remain with me in the house.

Purely as it was not a feature of our lives to visit graves.

And on the rare occasion we looked, the grave could not be found, in among the endless rows of concrete slabs.

It works far better for me to set them free in a place they loved.

But getting everyone together is impossible!

Nickname nemesis

I hated my nickname and still do! (April 27th)


Kids can zero in on that side order of difference with alarming speed.

So I inherited a habit of chewing my tongue.

I do this when I drift off sometimes or am concentrating on something.

Mostly I keep it in check.

So now you know.

I was’ tongue chewer’.

Not particularly inventive, but it is in that mangled old box of memories I have curated.

Techno freeranging

Our genration has the luxury of being able to free range and sample from all over. To retreat or go all out with technology. An older friend spoke to me recently about her search for time and space. Since childhood I have been absorbed by the mystery of time and space and as a teenager got to the depressing stage of doubting my own existence - an era when one did not talk about the expansiveness of the mind which in a way was a good thing.

Anzac Day remembrance

Remembrance.

The soldiers, the wars and those communities who were all apart of the many conflicts. My father was one of those world war two soldiers who never attended any memorials. But unlike others he did speak of his experiences. He was called to serve but never celebrated this. I am glad he was able to share some of that time before he left us. My daughter has now returned home from her job at the Keswick army barracks on Anzac Day. So to her it is the most exhausting day!

Until we can be one again

 Until We Can Be One Again  

Wayward son.

Carry on.

Gone wandering,

Cruel, brave and sure,

Good times appear,

The road is open.

Responsible son.

Follow the path,

Accept, wait and watch,

Storms will explode,

Distances loom,

But time is yours.

Exhausted dad.

Extremes of the mind,

No message on the screen,

Endurance pushed aside

Left hanging

Love is always willing.

All will be lost

All will stay the same

All will reach out

Until we can be one again.

Jenny Esots

My city of Flinders

My city of Flinders

The car park slowly filters in cars so by the time morning is past it is looking chokka.

I walk through the little goat tracks to the footpath and head to the traffic light crossing.

A gathering of the herd as we wait for the flow of a four lane highway to stop and let us through.

We meander across to the other side and cross to walk up the incline towards our entrance.

I find the Northern entrance and slip in through the automatic doors. At 8am all is quiet, no clinics open. Sometimes the faint smell of chlorine. Dated pictures on the corridor walls.

I find the ‘koala’ lifts and wait for the arrow to light up. This morning another person is also heading to the 6^th floor. Depending on which lift I am in I turn in the direction of the corridor towards the unit I am in.

The wards spread out in all directions. There are a variety of lifts, labs and rooms hidden away.

The lab corridors stretch down narrow halls, with their coloured doors and pale blue lab coats hanging on hooks.

There are many areas I have discovered. The medical library with its lounge chairs and newspapers. In January it is silent and peaceful. By April the masses are gathered around lap tops and text books.

How are you going? Have you got this back yet? A camaraderie of students coming and going.

My other favourite haunt is the Hudson’s for the proverbial long black. I liken the first sip of this as in a hit of nicotine. It has that dark bite that just lifts your brain connections! I try and read a few pages of a novel if the right seat is available near the window. This is so I can watch the numerous cars, delivery vans, taxis and ambulances jostle for a spot in the loading area. It has such a narrow space that the car chaises have a fraction of room to spare.

Occasionally I wander down to the courtyard garden space. With its hovering pigeons scooting along the pavement. It feels good to find some fresh air.

 

Medical records are tucked away on the first floor. A mass of files in every direction and black computer screens with green writing. How can they read this all day?

And so it goes on, more corridors, more people, more stories.

Amour Review

Amour – my review. Seen on Air New Zealand – 12^th of April, 2013.

‘Love’ - "How to manage the suffering of someone you love?"

We don’t do dying well in the western world. We ignore it as much as possible, and when this doesn’t work the hidden emotions rupture into anger, grief and fear. There is this insane belief that it can be out ran. This examination unfolds in this sparse expose of love and loss.

The film opens in an affluent apartment. Police arrive and search rooms. They are covering the nose with the hand due to the smell.

They find an elderly woman in a large double bed. Her head on the pillow is surrounded by flowers.

We go back to the beginning. An elderly couple together on a night out. They appear quite restrained in manner. It is clear they know each other very well. They are visiting a classical music concert and return in the evening on a tram.

The next day they are seated at the breakfast table when the woman becomes non responsive to voice and stimuli. She is just staring into space. What is wrong?

This is the beginning of an unfolding nightmare.

Eventually medical intervention occurs in the form of an operation to rectify a carotid blockage, which fails.

Various visitors enter. They appear in an interview like situation. Two seated figures facing each other.

A former student, the daughter. A neighbour. The couple appeared isolated, they have each other. Without one there is a gaping void.

Devotion turns to desperation.

Even when the story of decline is known, people fight it all the way. The woman eats and drinks very little. She looks fiercely angry at being asked to eat and drink. She spits water out.

There is a scene where a nurse is cast out, sacked, who is quite belligerent, which is disturbing.

The director Michael Haneke  has been interviewed on the Movie Show and related a desire to keep the audience guessing, not knowing what each scene will bring.

All the scenes are in the apartment, with the exception of the concert scene. Which gives a somewhat claustrophobic atmosphere.

The husband ventures out to a funeral and talks about this as if the whole process was beneath him. The outwardly displays of affection and grief.

The daughter is shown as not accepting the choices of her parents and wants to have a ‘serious talk’ about it. But seems to avoid actually doing this. There is a forlorn hope for a different outcome, another opinion, a different scenario than the hopeless one that is before them.

The film highlights the modern world of separate lives. How have we done this? Is it to avoid seeing ‘unnecessary’ pain and suffering of others.

The mother expresses horror at anyone seeing her like this. The husband likewise tries to shield her. The daughter insists on seeing her mother but falls in a heap after she does this. There is a total non acceptance of seeing someone not whole, dying and fragile.

The film has been described as too unsentimental in its depiction of daily events. There is a willing ness to show all the frailties of the sick woman, her being fed, washed and toileted.

The ending is quite cryptic. The husband is settling his wife after her distress, she had been calling out, he was having a morning shave. He tells her a story about his childhood and then smothers her with a pillow. This does not seem premeditated. He just does it.

He then writes a letter while being diverted by a visiting pigeon who wanders into the apartment from time to time. Also by buying flowers.

He chooses to trap the pigeon under a blanket. Then as if to appease the viewer we hear his narration of the letter, that he lets the pigeon go. Is there a metaphor of letting go, as in setting his wife free. These scenes seems to open up this possibility.

In the end we see the daughter return and wander through rooms, in an empty house.

So empty. Questions arise about the husband, where has he flown?

Our theme this year is Christmas Around the World.

My favourite time of year is Christmas, it is no secret to my friends!


I am one of the coordinators of the Willunga Christmas Tree Festival. A community event that draws on the inspiration of groups, schools, kindy’s , individuals and businesses to create a special tree.

We are in our 12th year and getting bigger and better each year.

Our theme this year is Christmas Around the World.

We usually have a special ‘light up’ night on the evening before.

This is when we wrestle with Christmas lights, trees and sing some carols.

It is always a midnight finish.

Our celebration would involve tree makers, decorators and all the community of Willunga.

It will be festive, fun and frantic!

Potentials

Have been musing on the concept of potential. One of the best messages that I have read over Easter. Thanks Peter Goers.

Another way of looking at it is we all have individual gifts, our potentials.

The hard part is to screen out all the random acts of sabotage that filter in each day.

The opposite of potential. Focus on the light and potential. Which is difficult as we are hard wired to remember the nine bad things said to us, instead of the one good thing.

Flower fringed fire crackers

The blazing red flowering gum decorates the flowered cross on Easter Sunday at Willunga Uniting Church. Something very uplifting about these flower fringed fire crackers.

People are more than commodities.

As a professional in health services for over 30 years I know very well the difficulties Andrew articulated (Eureka 4.4.13) about the semantics of input, through put, flow through etc and documentation. All concepts that work wonderfully for people like Toyota, however real people (staff and clients) are not as pliable and ammenable to pathways and interventions and production. ie it does not always go to plan. This is the dilemma of all human service organizations - How to quantify what is needed in dollar terms. People are more than commodities.