WalesOnline - Bear In Oz

Winter Warmth, Water & the Web

2009-06-19T09:48:08Z

It's been over a year since I left work, but I've only recently gotten around to getting my own laptop. The old home P.C. was well out of date & I'd been happy/lucky enough to use the work laptop I had, as part of my on-call duties for work, up until I finished on April 30, last year. I finally realised I was shelling out more (& getting less) at the shopping center internet facilities, than the combined laptop, printer & mobile modem I now have.
* * * *

Winter has arrived early in Queensland, this year. I can remember when I first came to Oz, being arse-freezingly cold in Byron Bay on the Queen's Birthday weekend, waiting for a mate to arrive with his caravan. Nearly 30 years on, here's my little grandkids wrapped up for their time at the beach.
Back in the 80s, we regularly had cold brisk westerlies that had "chill factor" written all over them. With no central heating, which had kept us very toasty in Pencoed during a couiple of snowed-in episodes, I was colder than I'd been for years. IN the intervening years, these winds seem to have occurred less & less, so that June has been a quite mild month for years.

I've mentioned before how we hardly used the wood heater for several winters. Well this week it's been lit most days for the past week+, since my wife got a new batch of firewood delivered. We're older & we're home more these days too, of course.
....but the mostly clear, sunny days have been heating up our solar water supply a treat.
Admittedly we've put the booster on once or twice for an hour or two. But we've been having pleasantly warm showers daily.

Solar

2009-05-12T09:11:20Z

We've finally gone to solar for our hot water. "Solarhart" crew came on Monday & put the panels & tank up on the roof & took the old, sad tank away for dumping. So naturally, Tuesday was overcast for much of the day & the switch for mains power remained on.
But that changed from Wednesday. Winter here is mostly sunny; summer wetter,
cloudier, but hotter, so it should be good, year-round. I put the mains switch to 'off' on Wed., and we've certainly had hot enough water for all our showers, dishwashing, etc.
Mind you, my son has been away working all week down in Northern NSW...andhe is the
20-minute shower man in this house, so we'll have to see. Then again, he is in the
process of buying his own townhouse (courtesy of a large chunk from my Superann. as deposit....which I hope to get back before I die! ) and could be out within weeks.

* * * * *
Speaking of hot water, my poor little grand-daughter Lily, who scalded herself while away for Easter at Iluka, in NSW, is now fine. her skin is still a little red, but she'll be fine, we're told. A great relief, of course.

"Unholy Easter"

2009-04-15T05:08:13Z

My daughter Lauren & her mob have had a terrible week....
First the dogs were taken to the pound on Weds, after Ben left the front door
open. If they'd been in the street, fair enough, but the catchers actually went in the house to get them (denied of course, but witnesses by a couple of neighbors, including the shift-worker acros the road, who has my old twinnie in his quiver of surfboards).
They were going to collect one on Thursday on the way down to NSW, but Easter
traffic was 'usual', so they were stuck in it & missed the closing time....so I had to get
one on Monday. The other is subject to a dangerous dog appeal (he's about as
dangerous as Scooby-Doo)
FAR worse happened on SUNday, when little Lily turned the boiling hot tap on herself
in the bath & got badly scalded. Here there is a legal requirement for hot water to be no more than 60C, but the old unit they were staying had obviously not updated their system(s).The ambulance took 40 minutes to get to them.
http://blogs.walesonline.co.uk/bearinoz/Lilybandaged.jpg
The paramedics praised Ben for his quick action in filling a cold bath & staying in it with her until they got there. She was treated overnight at Lismore (northern NSW) then they brought her up to Royal Brisbane Children's. Anyway, she'll be O.K., but is wrapped in treatment bandages & foil. She was allowed home yesterday. She goes in every 3 days now to get it changed.
Just to cap it off, Ben's aunt Donna (who looked after Lily's older sister Gwyneth for the 2 days while all were at the hospital) got held up at the newsagent she works at, yesterday a.m., by 3 'youths' with a crowbar - which they hit her over the head with & broke her glasses (she's O.K. tho), Then they wanted her to open the safe "but you've broken my bloody glasses, so I can't see the combination!" she yelled at them. So they got the glasses & fixed them as best they could....only in Australia, eh?
...I hope everyone else's Easter was better than that !!

"Flow on Effect"....

2009-04-07T03:30:16Z

...was the headline on yesterday's 'Courier Mail' that some old fella was reading on the courtesy sofas at the 'HyperDome' shopping center. It was a reference to recent rainfall & its beneficial result on the Brisbane dams. Today I went for my very occasional McD breakfast visit (the only thing they do that interests me) & read today's paper, which actually had dam-level figures. There are 3 of them serving the Greater Brisbane area. ...One had been down to a low of under 14% capacity, one at about 17%, one at 33 (in mid '07). Now they are at 34, 51 & 90, respectively. The latter is having some water diverted to the former, to balance things out and allow any further rain run-off not to be wasted by having the 90% one overflow....as indeed happened earlier in the year to the one in the Gold Coast hinterland, which supplies us, and which is now also gridded into the others.
...All this recalls that magical British summer of '76, which I enjoyed so much (and had a lot to do with tipping the scales in favor of migrating here). Clear skies for weeks on end & temps around the high 20s (Centigrade) were very easy to take. But water stoppages (except for us lucky Bridgend-area folk) of up to 20+ hours a day were a definite down-side. The idea of gridding water supplies was mooted on the telly, as I well remember. The 'experts' refuted the idea on the grounds of cost and the probability that Britain would be unlikely to experience another summer like that in "a hundred years"...a time-span I was not really prepared to wait thru to see another one. I've certainly had more than a fair share of 'endless weeks' of clear skies, particularly during our winter, during my almost 30-year life in Oz.

Adverbs: Gone real quick ..&.. Teaching a vocation??

2009-03-27T04:40:09Z

In another moan along the ' "By Jove, standards are falling" - Miffed of Mayfair ' lines, my wife has been on for weeks about the disappearance of the old adverb. The blog title should of course read 'Gone really quickly', but even BBC types, upon whom (there's another one: whom, whose 'm' is rapidly on the wane) we've always put a certain reliance for grammatical accuracy.
There's a big push in Queensland, and indeed other parts of the world, to make teachers accountable for standards, but as my wife, not to mention the guest on 'Bill Maher's Real Time' U.S. HBO show on here last night, has said: too many teachers are spending too much time on social services issues, individual problem kids, discipline problems and various other items that parents &/or the state should be solving.
According to Bill Maher, American kids are 35th in the world at Math.;29th in English. Australian kids are 14th, I'm told, whereas they used to be 3rd. But as long as parents, social services and particularly school admin. refuse to fulfil their obligations and shunt responsibility (and blame) off down the line, which ends with the teacher, it's not likely to improve much any time soon. Putting things like performance-related pay pressure and other so-called 'incentives' in the mix will only lead to teachers no longer looking at the profession as a life-long vocation. Many of the younger teachers locally are looking to move out into commerce after a few years, or once their kiddies are a certain age.
Queensland has recently changed its 'logo' (as on car licence plates) from 'Sunshine State' to 'Smart State', altho on what basis I fail to see. My wife's old suggestion, from the days when the National Party ran the place, that it should be 'State of Confusion' still holds a little merit.

World Kidney Day

2009-03-17T02:53:37Z

...well I misssed it, didn't I ? I didn't even realise that it was on my birthday - March 12.
I've had my 'new' kidney for 13 months now. Prior to that, I was a regular visitor to the "Homedialysis.Org" website & its attendant bulletin boards. I now rarely go there, as I kinda feel I don't belong any more, plus on the occasional times I do look in there, I find it a little depressing.
It's thru looking at it today, that I found the reference to World Kidney Day on the entry page. I went to the bulletin board. The first new entry on there was about not being able to get insurance to pay for home haemo. American, of course. I logged out.
My best wished go out to all kidney patients, belatedly, for WKD. Or indeed, any other day. But I suppose I should have put that on the bulletin board.
When will the USA ever get a 'proper' health system like those few countries that represent the 'civilized world' (like yours; like my adopted one). Perhaps under Mr. Obama, at long last. But he has such expectancy weighing on his administration, for so many fixes, in such dire economic circumstances. I wish him all the luck there is.....

Rainy day rummaging

2009-03-12T03:27:35Z

I finally got around to applying to Canberra for a new U.K. passport (ran out in Oct'08) several weeks ago....only to have them return my application. When the courier arrived,
I assumed it was the passport arriving, but was sadly disappointed after signing for it &
opening the envelope.
I'd checked the old one for its expiry date, somewhere around the end of August/beginning of September, at which time it was in a box on the bedside table. Subsequently mislaid, I filled in a 'lost passport' form & included it with the application...anyway, they're not happy & want an original birth certificate (or the passport).
Cyclone Hamish has been battering the coast further north. Now downgraded to a category 4, it is only giving us rain & relatively light winds. So, a rainy day, Leonard Cohen on the stereo (suitably miserable on a wet day) & I decide to have yet another look around for either passport or birth cert. So of course, I come across old fotos.....
my dear old gran's album of postcards sent to her during W.W.II, by her brothers from Germany and Egypt, which I think would go down very well on 'Antiques Road Show'....
and even a few old letters, including one from my old mate 'Grunty' in Canada, dating
to New Year 93/94. No passport, sadly, but a bit of win, as the birth cert. was in my
gran's album for some odd reason, rather than in the 'Guylian' tin with everyone else's,
plus fotos, my wife's old driving licence & teacher registration certificates & more.
I quite like a wet day. After the rummaging, a nice cuppa & watch the raindrops land
in the pool and top it up a bit, to save on using the hose. Every drop counts...

'Other' Dai's Day and a trip to the pix

2009-03-12T03:27:35Z

Mar 12: It's this particular 'Dai's Day' today, as I am a rather large SIX-OH! God that sounds old, eh? A long way from Glossop Terrace to here/now.
We're out for dinner with a few folk, tomorrow evening, but my son cannot make it, so last night he took me to see 'Watchmen' at the up-market cinema, with the bigger seats/more legroom/side tables/drinks & food brought to you. The 2 critics/presenters on ABC's 'Movie Show' gave it the top rating last weekend (4 and 4.5 stars) & I usually find they're pretty spot-on. They were: I loved it. I'd put it #1 in that genre, just above 'Dark Knight'
I've been a comics fan since I used to buy them at 6d (old pence!) each at the Cardiff bus station newsagents in the early 60s.....and rent them to my Cardiff High Schoolmates at '1d-a-read', which usually meant I'd recoup 1/2-2/3 the cost & thereby afford more.
At the time we left Wales for Oz in '80, I had 2 boxes of mostly pristine DC & Marvel titles, which my wife insisted I sell before we left......at a complete pittance. During the 'boom' in comics selling/trading in the 80s, I saw many of the issues I'd had in those boxes, up on the walls of Brisbane comic shops....with $70...$80...$90 price tags. Nothing 'comic' about those prices...hang your head & weep.
It's been quite good seeing them come to the big screen in recent years, with the level and quality of special effects these days.

Anyway, "Happy Birthday to me" and hopefully quite a few more to go.

Dai's Day

2009-03-04T04:42:46Z

Some of my old crew on the Goldie usually manage to throw together some half-hearted 'do' for St.David's Day. Some years I missed out going due to shifts, but now I'm retired & it was on a weekend anyway, so I was there yet again, albeit a bit croaky,
having caught yet another infection from the littlies. It's been at the British Pub-style
Prince Albert in the Gold Coast Casino for years, but this year they moved to a pub
behind the coast, called rq'S
It was to kick off at 6:00, but I never left home until ten to, as I was watching our local Super 14 side, 'The Reds', win their first game of the season. My wife was there in person, with her schoolteacher friends. I would've watched 6 nations ruby in the wee hours too -
if it wasn't exclusively on Setanta, which i refuse to pay extra for. I was told on arrival that Wales had lost tho.
One guy kept asking why I wasn't singing, onnce it started. AT first I said because I
would just start coughing. Later I said it was because the singing was so pathetic & it
was no wonder this lot had emigrated. I said it might be worth waiting until all had
consumed more alcohol...& sure enough, when they re-started some time later it
_was_ better & I did join in. They always have song sheets printed off & I'm always
amused by the phonetic versions for those who don't read Welsh.
Driving home I regretted this a bit, as the coughing came back with a vengeace. But a couple of slugs of 'Irish Moss' at bedtime settled it down enough to sleep. Ah well, see
you all in another 12 months....

Murder & Mayhem

2009-02-23T00:44:09Z

The "police line- do not cross" tape is a familiar sight from 'Murder City, Morse, Frost' and the like....but you never expect to see one in your own street, eh?
Well we've got one in ours, as of Friday arvo. There have been a multitude of police vehicles in attendance since, with forensics unit, vans, cars, 4WDs ...and even a portable 'dunny' (Privy to you lot ). The forensics units was pulling away when I walked the dog down there, on our usual evening jaunt. There's always a cop car there with the occupant reading a mag' or keeping themselves amused in some other way, while they monitor the tape & make sure no-one goes in. Saturday, when we passed, there was the smell of freshly-dug wet earth (we've lots of rain lately) and a nice pile of it on the drive, at the side of the house.
My wife said she saw someone next door to it, giving a statement. I said that's the person you'll see on Channel 9 news later saying -& my son chimed in for the chorus- "They were very quiet & kept to themselves". You always get that,eh? B-)
Friends of ours used to live in that house, in the 80s. I suggested my wife should ring them & say "They've found the bodies!", just for a laugh, like...

**** ****
Apart from the above, in recent weeks, there was a 32y.o. man shot dead at Burleigh Heads, in a so-called road rage incident. And someone who we know - he used to share a house with my daughter, her bloke & a bunch of others during what we call their "Melrose Place" era, a decade ago - is up on a murder charge,having deliberately run over someone. You just never know, eh?......

"Sorry"..... a Wunch of Bankers

2009-02-19T02:08:06Z

It seems saying sorry has taken off Big Time, since the Oz govt. finally got around to saying so to the aboriginal people about the 'stolen generation', a little while back.
The latest, I saw on BBC World, the other night, was the 'wunch' of bankers who were doing so in front of a parliamentary committee or somesuch. Were they so sorry as to return the FAT bonuses they've all been taking this past few years to get us into the state we are in??? Somehow I doubt it.
I liked Jay Leno's comment re: what a shame it was that western businessmen did not have the shame factor associated with their oriental counterparts and contemplate 'topping' themselves. No. they will live to enjoy their no-doubt Swiss-deposited stashes, while those of us watching our Superann' balances erode away like Rest bay sand castles on an incoming tide wonder how we'll survive....

"Rain, rain....go away"

2009-02-13T05:25:26Z

It started raining, fairly heavily, around 10ish, last night & did so for a couple of hours. After a short break it kicked off again & rained fairly solidly for a few more hours. SInce then it's been intermittent heavy showers, right thru to this afternoon. Good stuff.
Always welcome. I certainly would never say the phrase I've used for the blog heading .....except ...except I almost feel guilty about having it here. IT should be down south, where they could desparately use it to put out those extensive bush fires...and stop them from re-kindling over the next few days. Maybe the front will move down for them. Let's hope so...

Climate Change #2....thanx Norm

2009-02-11T02:53:19Z

Thanx Norm, for the lengthy comment. Nice to know someone is reading... B-)
I agree almost entirely. I know that in the past CO2 levels have been considerably higher, ditto O2. Both factors leading to the evolution of the mammalian mega-fauna, I've heard. Which is why I say it is relatively irrelevant how much we are exacerbating things, it's happening anyway.
I'd like to question your point about modern humans NOT being around during the Eemian tho'. Weren't _both_ Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon in N.Europe during that inter-glacial, 140,000 years back? With the former bringing down woolly rhino, mammoth & the like, rodeo-style & suffering consequential regular injury; the latter hunting reindeer and similarly smaller game? The coming of the last ice age being the eventual downfall of Neanders, circa 30,000 ago?
I've seen a few scientists extrapolate the theory that the previous warming at one point released a considerable amount of locked up fresh water from N.America over a short period, which disrupted the N.Atlantic drift ("Gulf Stream") and possibly even the 'global escalator' water pattern - temporarily presumably, otherwise we'd have had another Permian Boundary type exctinction!!! - which is what brought the ice-age back. They seem to be saying this will recur, if there is too much polar melt fresh water around Greenland /Iceland for any length of time.
We've just acquired BBC Knowledge on cable downunda, and I've been re-enjoying the
"Walking with..." series, amongst other things, including Doc Winston's "..with cavemen" group of progs, which I had _not_ previously seen on Nat Geo. So all this stuff is 'fresh' in my mind. I'm starting to think those of us 'poms' who left for Oz or Spain or the Greek Isles, may have the 'last laugh' (altho it'll be far from funny!) , if we and our offspring can survive the droughts & bushfires* for long enough!!
* * * *
*Arsonists don't help, of course & let's home they catch some of them at least
We are relatively safe, up here in Queensland, as it's our summer that is our wettest time.

Climate Change

2009-02-06T00:05:42Z

I was thinking of another title, but thought this one was likely to brighten up the chap who unnecessarily posted the caustic comment on Dick's "RiceinAsia" blog, the other day.... B-)
Anyone who _still_ no longer believes in Global Warming, probably has his/her head in the sand....or more likely, up their arse.....
Melbourne, Adelaide, and in fact all points south, have been having their hottest recorded days lately. Now Melbourne almost always has a short, hot spell some time around the Dec./Jan. school holidays, when they get a spell of N.W. wests off hte interior, bringing 40C+ temps had extreme fire danger. But it seems to be getting worse. They've had the heat for longer, the 40+ is becoming a bigger +,and it's more wide-spread. Sydney now seems to get the summer weather we used to associate with up here in S.E.Queensland., with regular mid 30s and higher humidity. We are now getting the humid, showery weather traditionally expected further up in hte tropics proper. Capricorn is only a few hours (3 degrees) North of Brisbane, but I think the tropical climate band is widening. It used to be a lot wider in times past (very past, admittedly, like hundreds of thousands).
All this probably seems laughable, given the dump of snow that Europe is currently experiencing. But this is most likely all part of the pattern anyway.
When the 5 hottest summers/temps of the 20th century occurred in the last 15 years...and things have not cooled down, something must be up. We've also seen the arctic pole totally free of ice, mid-summer, previously unknown. Of course, how much we humans have exacerbated it & how much is natural post-ice-age warming is really errelevant. Either way, we (or more likely our offspring) will have to deal with it.

A 'Friend' on Holiday

2009-02-02T02:38:09Z

There's a place called Rainbow Beach, a few hours North, where we stayed in a holiday house (for free!) a few times, when the kids were younger. The best time we had was with another family, who had three sons around the ages of our daughter & son - all between about 5 and 10 at the time. All the kids from both families always referred back to this time & all agreed it was one of their best times.
Unfortunately, our friends lost their middle son to leukaemia, at the oh-so-young age of 14. On his last day, he still remembered that holiday & was talking about it.
We haven't been up there for years, but my daughter & her family & in-laws were up there a couple of weeks back, again in a house. Little Gwen & Lily, my grand-daughters, had a couple of cousins to pay with, but Gwen also had an "imaginary friend", while she was there. Even while playing in the large family group she would mention the 'friend' and say to her mum "Can you see XXXX go!" when they were all 'surfing' down the dunes.
When it came time to go & they were told "Everyone in the car", Gwen said "Except for
XXXX, he has to stay!" 'XXXX" was a different name to our late little friend, but it does sort of make us wonder. We were supposed to go up there & stay overnight, while they were all there, but at the last minute my wife decided she didn't want to....I guess that's why, as she has always been rather 'in touch with the force'.