Growing up as a New South Welshman there are rules that are adhered to.  Under no circumstances do you drink XXXX as you would be considered a traitor and even threatened with being run out of the state. You will barrack for the NSW Blues affectionately known as cockroaches in State of Origin footy and you will never ever marry anyone from south of the border. I married a ‘Mexican.’ Lucky for me I had earned enough bagging Qld points to stay in NSW.

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Planning a trip to New York City, the city that never sleeps, seemed like a good idea back in October, but now that the date of departure is upon me I have put it in the ‘what were you thinking’ category. Obviously planning a trip to New York City in February hasn’t been one of my better ideas. As I sit inside my home with the air conditioner running on high because it is 42°C outside I wonder what possessed me to not only think about a trip to NYC, but actually book and pay for it. All I am s…

Australians’ let us all rejoice for they are going back to school…

As fast as you run your flag up the pole, eat your ‘cooked on the outside still raw on the inside’ snag  and the flyblown potato salad that on any other day would have the health department closing you down, argue over who is Australia’s greatest cricketer that has ever donned the baggy green, sing a stirring rendition of the first verse badly because not many of us know the second verse but we all know what girt me…

My husband’s fiftieth birthday came as a great shock to all those who know him.  We were of the opinion that he shouldn’t have seen forty let alone fifty in fact some of us have even put money on him not making thirty but somehow he has managed to defy death. We believe, and with good reason, that he would have removed himself from the gene pool by now. We also believe that he should have not only been nominated but that there was a fair chance that he would have taken out first prize in th…

With the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaching and knowing that it had fallen on the day my daughter was born I had added Germany to my itinerary for my European vacation  in the hopes of getting a piece of the wall for her 21^st next year.

I didn’t know much about Germany except they liked beer, they invented Adidas shoes and aspirin and they lost both world wars both of which they had started.

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Quote of the Week

“There’s a reason we separate military and the police: one fights the enemy of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”

– Commander William Adama, Battlestar Galactica

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Rome wasn’t built in a day… when a task is too big to be accomplished quickly people use the saying. Why Rome? and why is it a French Proverb? Why not Paris at least it’s in France. I had never given it much thought as to the origin or meaning until my husband threw the saying at me when I asked him how much longer it was going to take to finish the aviary. My first thought was I hoped he wasn…

Many Happy Returns.

Giving someone a call for their birthday was once a pleasant experience. You would dial the number and find yourself smiling for no particular reason as you waited for the phone to answer. When it did you would put on that bizarre voice, the one that is a few octaves higher than your normal voice – again for no particular reason- and believing the birthday recipient had suddenly become hearing impaired you would bellow down the phone, “Happy Birthday.’ Some even manage…

Getting up at 5am to get the 6.30 am plane to Melbourne takes some getting used to but no more than getting up at 5am to catch the 6.30 plane to Melbourne that doesn’t leave until 7.15.  Arriving in Melbourne we were greeted with their glorious weather… Rain. By the time the plane touched down in Sydney yes I said Sydney. We were four and a half hours into our trip to Los Angeles and I had heard the safety speech twice and by the time we left Sydney for our intended destination I thought I …

Our dogs sometimes sit on command, they rarely fetch, they take themselves for a walk and they know how to bark. They bark when the cat is around. They bark when someone walks passed and they can really get the decibel count up when someone enters the yard.

During the day it is annoying but tolerable at night it is unbearable and excruciating.

Climbing into bed suffering from the flu, which had taken a vice like grip on me and being allergic to anything that is likely to offer any comfort …

Sometimes you can open a parcel or a letter and be surprised at what you find. And then from out of the blue you are handed a suitcase and you look to the tattered old brown suitcase in front of you and a million things race through your mind. I had been pre warned what it contained but nothing could prepare me for the treasures it held. And what treasures they are.

I stared into the little suitcase and all thoughts of the luckless day I was having left. The contents more than made up for the…

“What are your expectations?”

Stepping off the train in Amiens, France, I was excited if not a little anxious as I made my way out of the station to meet our guide, Sylvestre and his question that I was expecting.

Did I have any expectations? Should I have any? It was obvious I had more questions than expectations. “I don’t know,” I replied with a hint of embarrassment. He shrugged.  I guess I wouldn’t be exceeding his.

I sat quietly in the vehicle pondering. The two letter…

There is a reason Christmas is called the Silly Season… actually there are probably a dozen reasons but the main one is due to insanity. The Silly Season that once used to start in December can now put in an appearance as early as September or whenever the retailers can get their decorations up. And it is no coincidence the moment those bells start to jingle peoples nerves begin to fray.

Peace and goodwill lasts up until someone cuts you off and pinches your parking space. Then sanity takes…

When your dreams turn to dust, vacuum.  ~Author Unknown

Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.

Oscar Wilde