Dot's Hippie 74th

On the 27th August, Dot celebrated her 74th birthday with a party at home with some of her friends. At this time, Dot was recovering from her hip-replacement operation at our local private hospital, having returned home after discharge from that institution on Friday 23rd August.

In view of her surgery, Dot suggested having a hippie party, with people wearing hippie gear and each of us was provided with hip badges. Mine had 'Groovy' inscribed upon it. Well, our guests, with the exception of Rebecca, were let's say elderly so not much hippie gear was on display. I, however, wore one of my sleeveless shirts in honour of the occasion and Bec provided some groovy decorations for our dining area.

It was a festive occasion with lot's of nice food on the table, carefully selected presents, some vigorous discussion and reminiscences, and of course a rendition of 'happy birthday to you'. Still in recovery mode, Dot managed the occasion well.

Here are some views of the occasion I, and others, took with my mobile phone. Notice the banner Beck provided hanging from the window slats.

And here's the selfie that Bec took of us all together.

I also took a selfie showing the Groovy badge pinned to my shirt.

And, for a laugh on the part of my readers, I'll add an embarrassing picture of me having apparently gone to sleep at the table! Ouch!

AS

An Unusual but Brilliant Concert

I love Armidale's vibrant musical life and last Saturday I attended yet another inspiring concert. We had two highly accomplished performers, John Bell and Simon Tedeschi. John worked an  artistic director and administrator and actor with many different organisations: Royal Shakespeare Company, Nimrod Theatre (which he founded along with Bell Shakespeare), Opera Australia, and the Sydney Theatre Company. He's played most of the major roles in Shakespeare's plays over the years and he's about to star in Moliere's "The Miser". For all this work he was awarded the Order of Australia (AO) and, remarkably, the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

His co-performer is equally accomplished. He's performed on the piano in most of the renowned concert halls of North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. And he's performed for an amazing array of world leaders, including George W Bush, Vladimir Putin, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama! And, get this. He first performed a Mozart piano concerto at the Sydney Opera House at the age of 9. Yes, that's not a misprint. He has also recorded a variety of works for posterity and won many overseas awards including the New York Young Jewish Pianist Award.

Here are the two performers, one a musician and the other an actor - a strange combination for a musical evening.

But, when you see the program you can that this concert involves Tedeschi playing a series of piano works by Schubert intermingled with Bell reciting poems written by John Keats. Schubert and Keats had, in a way, much in common. They were contemporaries, but probably never met each other. Keats' and Schubert's lives were horribly short: 1795 - 1821 for the former and 1797 - 1828 for the latter. Keats reached 25 and Schubert 31, just 56 years of age combined. Both came from lower-down the social pecking order. Keats' father was an inn-keeper, while Schubert's was a teacher. And Keats' famous poetry was written in just 6 years. Both K and S were, however, key early romantics who influenced that genre through much of the 19th century.

Strange or not, our performers were truly excellent and won great applause from the large audience in Armidale's town hall. They alternated their genres and kept the audience rapt. Of course, Keats had the same effect on latter 19th century poets like Alfred Lord Tennyson, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and the Pre-Raphaelites, who praised him hugely, such that he's now regarded as the most quoted of all English poets. Likewise, Schubert became regarded as one of the greatest composers of early 19th century. He managed to compose over 1,500 works during his short life.

What our audience appreciated were the commentaries of both performers on the works they performed or recited and their role and status in driving the genre of Romanticism in the 19th century.

Armidale has a highly educated work-force that laps up such cultural highlights and I'm proud to be part of this genre. The combination of music and poetry was so well done that maybe others will try it.

This is my third post of today and the harbinger of things to come. I've been off-air so to speak for about 6 weeks, three of which were spent in the USA again - added to the four weeks in May-June. And you'll soon discover that I roamed that country across the north starting from Burlington in Vermont - just South of the Canadian border and Montreal. I spent another week in the Mid-West based at Saint Paul (a twin city with Minneapolis), but roaming widely through both Wisconsin and  Minnesota. And, unsurprisingly, I spent another week with family in Seattle. It was a glorious, but tiring trip.

AS

What do you think of this little town?

I've just been reading about one of the strangest towns on our planet. It's a little place called Cooladdi, which is located on the Diamentina Development Road 826 km (c. 515 miles) west of Brisbane in southern Queensland. This little place had a post-office and associated post-code, a pub, a restaurant, a motel and a grocery store. These facilities enable Cooladdi to be called a 'town', despite the fact that it has no school, police station, bank, or mobile phone connection!

What is more surprising is its population size. The total resident population of this town is 3 (yes, 3) but I gather there's a fair through traffic of tourists and local farmers. And these three people are all members of one family. Also surprising is that the services indicated are all located in one tiny cluster alongside the Diamentina road which also serves as a main street. Perhaps 'main street' is a misnomer since it is the only street in town! The cluster of buildings is known as the Fox Trap. That's also odd as foxes are not native to Australia.

If you click on the following URL you'll a lovely picture of this prospering little community:
https://goo.gl/maps/SEJQL5NRAJs4jAc7A .

Cooladdi, by the way, is an aboriginal word meaning 'black duck'. Back in the early 19th century it was home to over 270 people but, like so many outback places, residents have just died or disbursed, and larger places, like Charleville 100 km to the east, have siphoned off service provision. There is a smattering of deserted buildings, rusted abandoned cars, a decrepit tennis court, and even a railway platform on a long abandoned line.

Australia has hundreds of small places that are dying or dead, and Armidale's region is no exception. We have such nearby places as Wandsworth, Dundee, Glencoe and Ben Lomond - all named after places in Britain - and I doubt if their combined populations are greater than 20!

AS

Extreme Drought

Hi Folks,

We're in the middle of what might be the worst drought ever for the Armidale region. We have had virtually no rain now for the last 3 months and the year's total to date so far in 2019 is perhaps only 35% of normal rain.

Have look at this map, which explores the gory details of this drought event for the whole country. Hardly anywhere is above average rainfall for the last 3 months and most places are drought affected.

And the Armidale district is now deep red in colour - the worst on record. Who knows when it's going to end! The cause seems to be related to a massive southward shift in pressure systems over places like ours that are roughly 30 degrees south. Put another way, high pressure systems are normally located close to Alice Springs in the middle of the country. This year, those systems have been displaced southwards by c. 1500 km (800 miles) and are located well south of the continent much of the time.

This means that the vigorous frontal systems coming in from the southern ocean have also been displaced south. While they often reach as far north as Armidale dropping quite a bit of rain, this year they've only impacted the south-west of the continent (Perth),  south-western Victoria, Tasmania and, strangely, the Sydney region.

Worse still, the monthly rain projection for our district is close to zero. Indeed, one forecast I've seen suggests that we'll be in drought until 2021!!! Already, Armidale is on level 4 (out of 5) water restrictions and we cannot legally water our garden or plants. I now take a shower only 2-3 times a week rather than daily. Some lucky people have added water tanks to their homes or have access to bore water and can by-pass at least some of the effects of water use restriction.

AS

Lookout Bushfire

I was driving home from my UNE office yesterday when I saw a column of smoke rising from a hill-top near our home. Intrigued, I navigated to the scene of the blaze, along with quite a few other motorists and also the fire brigade. And this is what I saw:

There was a bloke walking around the edge of the blaze and I presumed that it was a controlled burn-off of very dry vegetation in what has turned out to be for us a severe drought. Such events are designed to prevent larger and more damaging fires later on. The pictures are directed at the seat of the fire, which I saw burning away close the bushes you can see at the top of the ridge. And I judged that the fire engine was there to prevent the fire getting out of control if that looked likely.

By the way, the wind took the smoke in the direction of our home, though fortunately it's somewhat lower than the scene of the fire and mostly passed overhead.

AS

Kids' experiences

Our recent visit to Seattle to stay with family members there for nearly 4 weeks made many impressions on us. And one of the stand-out observations was the richness of experiences obtained by modern children in well-off households. I compared such observations with my own experiences of growing in post-war Britain at a time of slow recovery, rationing of goods and services, and long tradition.

Our grand-kids, Ella and Flynn were involved in a huge range of activities even though their combined ages only amount to 14 years! For example, both are involved in gymnastics as you can see from these pictures, with Flynn sitting on the ground and Ella performing movements.


Their carefully choreographed and supervised classes were attended by scores of kids on the evenings we there. And almost everyone seemed high spirited and enthusiastic.

 And Ella spent quite a while practicing here hand stands at home.  Flynn plays soccer once or twice a week despite only being 6 years old.
















And here he is wearing team colours. During our stay he acquired a smart new bike











And this machine got a good workout while we were visiting.



Flynn also goes to Jujitsu classes and here he is dressed in the right attire.








Then both kids attend swimming lessons, and while Ella is highly accomplished, Flynn is also doing quite well.

Again, the popular classes are well-organised and conducted by specialist advisors. For her part, Ella practised pitching, catching and striking baseballs

Both kids also have great imagination. For example, rather than eat breakfast from kitchen stools, they constructed themselves an "eating box" reserved for themselves!

And Ella acquired a hover-board - presumably for her birthday. And she spent quite a while coming to grips with riding the device unaided. One of their friends across the road ably demonstrated how it was done and I'm sure Ella ... and perhaps eventually Flynn will master the device. They're both so young and so accomplished.




















On another occasion, Ella and Flynn headed to an unusual class where kids competed against each other on various tasks like racing through an obstacle course which involved climbing and jumping.

And on yet another occasion they went to a play-centre where they play dodge-ball, bounce into pits of foam and so on. Again, they both had an excellent time.

So, you can see that they led a highly varied, challenging, exciting, and energy-packed existence occurring multiple times a week - far different to the way I was brought up. Good luck to them!

AS

Armidale Cloudscapes

This post is a short diversion from my discussion of our recent visit to Seattle. It comes about because of my frequent walks either in the morning or evening and my celestial views of dawn and dusk, which are often very attractive. The images posted here date from the last two months and I'm sure you will find them attractive.


These first two pictures were taken near home one evening and I was taken by the sky aflame.













On another walk one morning to the hills just north of where we live revealed a morning fog enveloping the valley in which Armidale sits - together with autumnal colours. Autumn came late this year because of the hot weather we have had and deciduous trees had still retained their glorious colours even into May (November in the northern hemisphere).

And today I took these three images . The first two show clouds lit up by the rising sun and you'll have to agree that these images are spectacular.


























And, a little further into the walk way out into the countryside north of where we live, I was taken by the lighting effect of the sun trying to peek through the same cloud formations we've just seen above. Again, I think the image is rather pretty!

 AS

Back to the Olympic Peninsula

On our way to Hurricane Ridge, which I reported upon earlier, we called in at two picturesque small places. These were the town of Port Townsend and the village of Port Gamble, both dating back to early European settlement, the latter occurring in 1853.

Port Gamble had plenty of old wooden buildings and, as you can see below, an old cemetery that was worth a visit. It had lovey views out over the surrounding waters.

And there's no guessing the flag proudly flying over the scene.

As you can see from these pictures Port Gamble was a relaxed and somewhat touristy place. One of the pictures shows a ferry terminal with the mountains of the mainland in the far distance,




























From Port Gamble it was just a short drive to Port Townsend, a much larger, but attractive little town with a lot of older buildings dating back a century or so.

Recognise any of these dudes?






























Some of the old buildings sported murals advertising this that or the other, but slowly decaying.

However, it was the waterfront that captured the attention of the youngsters in our party, Ella and Flynn.

There were some interesting, but constructed, rock formations, which attracted them. These are shown on the right and below.

And both Flynn and Ella had a lot of fun scrambling around some 'sculptures'.



We then explored an old lighthouse and some nearby foreshores strewn with logs and timber that the kids also explored.

Then we headed off to visit a disused army base with its gun emplacements  and now empty barracks.






















Again, Ella and Flynn has a great time roaming around the facililty







I can't quite place the last picture shown here - a nearby trailer park, but again it underscores the important tourism base of the local economy.

 AS