More old photos. I just love looking at them...this is of my mother Margaret taken in about 1931. Mum looks in this photo how she was throughout our lives...gentle, full of humour and fun...amd no more said. After the doctors in their stupidity got through with her she suffered terribly... but this sweet faced little girl had no idea of any of this and like most kids lived in the present...the best way to live I think. 

When I was down at one of my daughter's places recently I had a bit more time and found this link which is mainly relevant to Australians but also to those who like old photos.
http://www.pictureaustralia.org/index.html

While looking through I typed in the search of places my parents had lived and theirs, such as Scone NSW, Rouchel NSW, Aberdeen NSW and Bingo! I found a photo of a family home belonging to my father's great grandfather who emigrated from Wicklow in ireland in 1841. They were Protestants (I am an mixture of Orange and Green and sooo pleased I am in Australia for this to go down so well) and had 13 children 11 of who made it to adulthood.

So this is the first family home and although I can't pick the faces this is a family group after a cricket game held at the house...so a fair bet most of these are if not ancestors then siblings of ancestors... our family seems rather sparse in comparison these days.

"Well I never!"

Charlie asked was I okay...HM!

Not after my very recent triple searches by Australian security forces aka "privatised security - we hate old white women" at the airport...

Here I was middleaged and very respectable (ifn only they knew!!!) mother of two adult daughters and long term wife of the worst haggler ever born...

here I was just travelling down to see our youngest daughter in Melbourne... a mission of love and mercy...well I did vacumn out her place and other things...but thats what we respectable mums do...

here I was... happily hopping offa the country flight into the Sydney terminal and how was I supposed to know that the "gold" bracelets my husband had bought me were not quite all gold and set all the alarms off... ??

so I told them I could no longer get them off as I am a tad chubbier than I was as a sweet young thing... so happy to just stick my bare arm out and see ... its just my jewels...

Well that went down like a lead balloon.

Multiple pairs of dark and angry eyes glared at me as if... as if... might I have a boomb in my pockets...?

Not this little brown hen. She don't kill herself for no one okay.

"Could you take your shoes off please"... "Okay what do I do with them?" I was not being smart... I didn't know and tried to hand my smellies to them..."Put them through the X Ray"...which I did but it was the wrong Xray ! "No, no, no,no! on the tray! on the tray!... that Xray!"

Still smiling as is my won't I obliged. "Please take off your coat!" (it is winter here! coats are okay) and I folded my poor denim coat into a little ball and put it also on the tray.

Again through the XRay..."its my bangles okay" Duh! "the ones which won't come off"

"Put your hands in front of you together"...which I did. Bing!

"Now put one hand infront and one behind"... I tell youse all what I felt like Coco the clown by this time...! Bing! (Of course bing! it was my bloody bangles in full view. Like I was going to peel back my skin 'a la "V" and go for some dim wit.

"Come over here" Oh shit.

"Put your arms out and legs apart"

Arms are fine but me's getting a bit stiff in the legs apart department...sorry guys...after years of lifting and hauling - slipped discs and fused veterbrae its not a position I can hold for long... not a pretty picture I know but there it is... a lot of the time these issues cause me a lot of pain big time and this time was one of them...I'm thinking 'you bastards'. Maybe I shoulda let my hair go grey and not dyed it so I could look my age !

So a little middle eastern woman pats me down. Another - like the other waves a magic wand over me... and finally I am able to retreive all of my stuff - all clumped together in a pile of trays.

And you know this was just on my way down to see my daughter. No problem at all in the country airport. Sydney was the big cheese. And the same treatment again but a bit more friendly at Melbourne airport...and again at Sydney... Sydney the second time was worse.

And yes despite a country gone mad...so shit scared of terrorism because of our support of Bush's brutal invasion of Iraq..., yes I did enjoy my visit to my daughter. We talked and talked...good stuff. I had six days and on the third day my heart stopped its pounding. I slept more than two hours in a row without waking and listening for my husband's breathing...is he or is he not breathing???

I woke up Thursday morning with the most wonderful feeling of peace...lounged about till all of 11.30 in my tracky dacs and Ali and I had the best 'talks' ever. I remembered my own mum once saying "It was a wonderful visit...we had a good talk didn't we?" and that made me cry...

She is an inspiration. With the tonnes of shit she has had no choice but to deal with...she still is a major personality.

Ali and I had a good talk and more than one ... and maybe that is what it is all about ... We got a picture message from eldest - Melissa, in Greece... been a bit worried about her with the dreadful events going on in the area ... AndI took Ali and her partner out to tea at a big time overpriced Japanese restaurant... and as usual had to ask for a knife and fork... well why not? Knives and forks make so much moire sense than two bloody sticks...even if people looked at me as if...tee hee...as if...

And I drank half a bottle of her partner's Scotch... after asking of course - (Johnnie Walker) and replaced it with "Fra Angelico"..." because he doesn't really like Scotch at all anyway mum"

We hired a friend who is a nurse also to come and stay with Don while I went... and it was a big deal really... the planning...paying her for the week and fares etc etc and thereby having a break from being responsible 24/7... and I slept and slept in, till all of 8am every one of the 6 mornings...

Thorn the wonder dog was sooo pleased to see me. But more pleased to sniff my suitcase which obviously smelt of Alison his real owner. He was all wistful last night and I patted him over and over...but every so often he would go and sniff my bag ...which had Ali's smell. (She raised him and was his closest friend since 1995).

Another set of '80's curlylocks..see Amy no need to be embarrassed, my sisters did it too...Our Mum who they has=d just woken up after a night of sisterly debauchery does not look pleased, but in retrospect I think that we should have asked her along. 

Comeon out you all...Amy did it first see www.divinerealities.blogspot.com/ brave gal to expose her '80's look...some of us were a bit older than Amy in the '80's but them old curls attracted us all. Lets see you all in your '80's "look" Comeon I double dog dare you all...Charlie, Nicki, Edy, Sara, Jacqui, Brownie and those umentioned lets have a look at ye all in you hay day. Comeon Floots mullets are all the rage these days.

This is another shot of Don's new waterfall and I got to save my Rosemary bush in the centre...I might have to be careful not to fall in when I need a bit to go with the lamb roast .


But beware...waterfalls are scary in Australia...even ones we build ourselves seem to attract the crocodiles...

and yes the few remaining "suds" will be gone soon...


Mr Frog and Toad is lucky he has got his boat I reckon. 

Born on the 4th of July...and looking suave on his "BIG 56th" in his new Driazabone hat...a swashy winter scarf...grey of course and ready for a quick kiss...any offers?

He's a little upset that the beard and mo he has had snce 1970 (HM) has now decided to coulou itself in wierd alternating white gingery patches...for NO reason!
This is the great card I made him...and all you northerners...this is Australia mid winter 22degrees celsius...it is heaven here in winter if you don't mind 6 months of dreadful summer.

Yes 56...56...56 we know . This hat is his old favourite come summer, winter sleet rain or snow, bushfire, thunderstorm...whatever it stays on his head okay!

More train bombings - the Middle East continuously at flash point - all of it, the poisonings by corporations who murder more of us than any war ever did - Our dipsy PM who explains so neatly why Nuclear power is "necessary" lest we ever forget Chernobyl.

We all know how bloody bad and evil all these elite these bastards are.

I can still remember exactly how I felt when I was four,five, six, and everything I owned would have fitted into a small school port. I am/ was the same as every kid who ever lived. Full of devillment, fun, always hungry always asking questions, looking out and looking in, running, swimming, being as naughty as I could be without overstepping that fine line between bad and just having "spirit"...being a universal kid...luckily loved by parents, sisters and relatives...secure in my poor little home, in a poor little town with no other protection than what my family afforded...just like the majority of earth's children - might reasonably expect to be -

... so that when I see children butchered, made homeless, orphaned, abused - like all decent human beings it is like having a bit of your heart drawn out. It is against all that is sacred. Everyone on earth has or had, eyeshine, hope dreams and laughter all of that, so everyone in someway is still that little child inside...except that some really do seem to have sold their souls to the highest bidder. It is these elites who make policy, market chemicals, profit from the arms industry , protected along with their families who are somehow more worthy than our families. And yet its not us worldwide against them worldwide. its us against each other as they manipulate us to hate Muslims, Blacks, Whites, Christians, Jews, Asians, Communists, Unmarried Mothers, Cripples, deaf people, Blind people, men, women, educated uneducated, rednecks and the cafe latte set ...an endless list of "minority" groups, of which we all belong to one or the other...it keeps us busy and tut tutting with each fresh "outrage" perpetrated by our favourite hated group.

Why is it that worldwide, in all ages we the ordinary/ extraordinary people allow ourselves to get totally whipped up in hatred against other ordinary/extraordinary people? All wars have been started because of an obscene gratification of the ego of leaders be they political, religious corporate or whatever. This obscene ego becomes insatiable and the need for more power, more grandiosement, more control never ends.


I am not advocating all out slaughter : ) of those bastard leaders, or in our present state of state imposed fear I would find myself in teeerrouble quick smart, but those evil people who generate perpetrate and manipulate the sorts of hatred which lead to mass and stupid acts of killing of innocents deserve a bit of a dust up from time to time.

They have ensured that they are protected from the outcome of their actions.

I'd like to see the Blairs, Howards, Bushes, Mugabes, Kissengers etc etc the CEO's of Pfeizer, Roche, GlaxoSmith Klein have to travel daily on the trains which may or may not get blown up; have to go to public hospitals riddled with MRSA because of over use of the drug companies antibiotics - have to be exposed as the rest of us ordinary people are to the outcome of their evil egos.

Maybe it will never happen on earth. I just wish I was sure that there really was a hell for them to go to. Maybe that hell will be having to face their own maggoty faces in the mirror of truth for eternity. One can hope.

I have to hope that there is such an eternity. Because for me it just doesn't make sense if there is no balance in the end. Maybe there isn't but I won't know about that, so maybe foolishly, maybe wisely I have to hope that there is justice for the innocents who are brutalised, and for the evil shits in the dark suits - always dark suits - who are the elites and who are always safe and rich. May they rot in hell.

Fluoride poisoning of horses

We are still battling to keep Fluoride out of our water supplies. This recent study gives just another reason why fluoridation should be stopped. We have a duty of care to animals and unlike us human beings animals like horses are worth money.
9/7/06
Dear Editor,
The Hastings Safe Water Association has passed on to Veterinary Surgeries and Councillors in the Hastings information concerning Fluoride poisoning of horses who drank artificially fluoridated drinking water, provided to us by the Australian Fluoridation News.

The literature on fluorosis in cattle is extensive but information about fluorosis in horses is almost non-existent. A recent study from the US should have horse owners alarmed. Although this information is now published, findings are not being released by the department of Agriculture.

The study by Professor Lennart P. Krook (Professor of Pathology, Emeritus Fellow, American College of Nutritional Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Biochemical Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca NY USA) found in summary that: -
“Quarter horses consuming artificially fluoridated water (up to 1.3 ppm F) for extended periods of time developed classical symptoms of chronic fluoride intoxication including Dental Fluorosis, crooked legs, hypertosis (overgrowth of bone) and enostosis (a morbid bony growth developed within the cavity of a bone or on the internal surface of the bone cortex), hoof deformities and microscopic evidence of reduced bone reabsorption. These symptoms began to appear about two years after fluoridation started… and gradually became more severe.”

…” Blood serum thyroxin in a nineteen year old mare was very low and interference with reproduction noted after five years….” “The levels of Fluoride ingestion and the bone Fluoride concentrations of these horses are far below those claimed to cause fluoride intoxication in cattle.”

“After Fluoridation was terminated on March 29, 2005 colic gradually ceased and other significant improvements have occurred.”
http://www.fluorideresearch.org/391/files/3913-10.pdf

Fluoridation of drinking water causes chronic illnesses to develop in humans, and all animals who drink fluoridated water. Will Hastings Council inform us what arrangements they propose to ensure that unfluoridated drinking water will now be provided for those who keep animals in fluoridated areas? Considering their lack of response to similar questions regarding our right to have an unfluoridated drinking water supply their silence will be deafening.
Yours sincerely,
Therese Mackay - President of the Hastings Safe water Association
(if you would like a copy of this please provide a postal address.)

I have always thought that that dreadful show Big Brother which is I believe in not just Australia but in other countries was designed as some sort of a sick form of social engineering and and Psychologists' heaven.

During the recent debacle here in Australia where two men sexually assaulted a stupid young woman who then said it was okay (duh!) it was revealed that one of the major sponsors (?) of the show here and I would imagine in other countries is that Pharmaceutical drug giant GlaxoSmith Kline. Now why along with Pizza Hut, Masterfooda and other fast food companies would a major manufacturer of anti depressants and other mood and mind altering drugs want to sponser a shit show like this?

I have to wonder is the show itself designed not just to see how far people on the show will go before they crack up, or assault people but are the viewers also being tested to see just what it takes to make us protest and how far can they take it before they have pushed it too far.

Wake up folks there is something terribly sick going on here. For those of us who choose not to watch it, we still have a responsibility to those millions of kids in their teens who seem to think it is okay to emulate the contestants. Going down that dumbed down "Animal Farm" path will lead many to emotional breakdown and self destructive behaviour.

Now why would GlaxoSmith Kline have anything to gain from that?

And here are Don's two beautiful sisters together. They were so close in life I have to hope that they are still close in some way. Now that I also have two daughters I understand what these two meant to each .

So Sorry to bring on such a downer, but its not just old photos and people from the distant past who need our respect or thoughts... this is Don's eldest sister Jeanette and her husband Jacko. They married in about '61 or thereabouts. They had a child called Phillip. When Phillip was about four and Jeanette was 8 mths pregnant they were all killed when a drunk driver hit their car on their way home from a little holiday.

When I met my husband Don in '72 his mother was "strange" and it took me years to fully comprehend why.
Now I have two grown daughters I know well why.

What I have learned from all of this from these tragedies, from my own family tragedies is not to take life or anything for granted.

Not to descend to the ordinary...not to become entrapped by self absorbtion.

To wake each day to a sunrise, to my girls still alive, to Don still breathing beside me is okay...all else is just a plus.

I am not going to write the world's greatest novel, nor climb the highest mountains... (as if)... but I am going to and do appreciate all the days allowed to me, and know that they are gifts. And not feel hard done by if others seem to have more or look better, or whatever.

Its Don's big 56th tomorrow. he's been sick, he's been sick realy since 1982, but you wouldn't know it, the way he is. I have made him a book of a card and we will go to lunch somewhere... and just us two - blow out candles... and thats okay.

He was so sick over the weekend. I was worried we might not be in the good situation we are in today. But we are... aint it a wonder? I can't wait to see what oddities the girls have got wrapped up for him for his birthday... I have a few myself... Fifty six is not so old when you have 91 year old friends!!!!

I think that this is one of the most beautiful but saddest photos in our albums.

It is of Don's sister Judy and her first husband Buddy. A year after this photo was taken in about '67 they were in a car accident and he was killed.

She stupidly married someone years later who "resembled" (big mistake) her love. He turned out to be the biggest drunk and bully imaginable. Life was a struggle for her and she raised their two children basically alone.

Then in '96 she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She died in '98. Don and I spent the last three months with her. I still feel raw remembering this time.

I was looking at this today and if ever anyone feels sorry for themselves it would do no harm to consider this pair who when they kissed in this photo could never have imagined what life held in store for them. I never met Buddy, but Judy was just the most lovely sister in law I could have wished for.

My belief is that somewhere, somehow in another universe or heaven the balance is struck and they are finally together, having the life they deserved. If it is not so then I will not know. For now I prefer the small comfort of thinkng it may be this way.i