I am now located at the beautiful seaside town of Albany, WA. Home of my fathers and currently home of my Mother and two sisters. I finished my high school here before enlisting in the Army and I am back here do my bit in settling the family home. Weeks of sorting out the life of my 85 year old mother as she is now resident in a retirement home. It is typical of her that she postpones retirement until her 86th year as her days still include lessons in the Hebrew language, writing stories and poems (she is published) and doing Grandmother things like writing to her many descendents.
Like many of her age, she has had a fall and took some hours to get to the phone and she locks the house up like Fort Knox…a very dangerous combination making the retirement home move very welcome to her family.
A lifetime of memories. A receipt for the rates paid for the family farm in 1946…a letter from Mum’s youngest bother from Borneo dated 1944 where he was helping to sort out the Japs at the tender age of 19. He asks…is that Navy chap still visiting? He was and stayed for more than 50 years before the ravages of WW2 service took our father from us. A report card from Pemberton primary dated 1953 pointing out that Kevin James had more potential than substance and a telegram I sent in 1978 saying twins born, all well, innings closed. As the twins were our 4th and 5th and the eldest was yet to turn six I clearly found substance somewhere along the track.
The trip over in the Discovery was not new to me. I have travelled Sydney/Perth and Brisbane/Perth more times than I care to remember but each time I do the trip I find something to break the monotony. New nickel mines at Ravenswood….petrol at $1.52 per litre…that’s enough
I am now setting up in my BIL’s computer shop. Poor bastard can’t refuse me – he’s married to my youngest sister.
Later today I’ll start posting again.
I’m reseiving strange comments and although they are, on the whole complimentary, I suspect the motives of the writers.
from alub8417@tech.tv
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ohuy_l4761@freemail.com
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alub7896@see.to
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and;
from izaz9996@pisem.net
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Not the sort of comment one leaves at a blog. Can anyone help….what are they trying to do.
Unlike online casino poker spams, they don’t leave links so what do they hope to achieve?
Monash Uni students and staff are going on strike to protest the government’s plan to make student unionism voluntary.
… Vice-Chancellor Professor Richard Larkins said voluntary student unionism would jeopardise thousands of jobs and the viability of extra-curricular activities at Australian universities.
Is the VC saying that union fees pay the salaries of thousands of workers? If so, therein lies a very good reason to review the whole situation.
Association spokeswoman Danya Bryx said they expected thousands of students to boycott classes this week and join rallies.
She said some staff had also cancelled classes all week and others were holding VSU discussion classes instead.
It’s all about power, folks – the power to control millions of dollars of student funds.
My children have a total of five degrees from UQ and I’m well aware of Student Union fees. No fees…no results…no degree…help Dad…mumble…bitch…moan.
And then one child borrowed the Union car to drive home…a Suburu Forester…better than mine at the time but then I wasn’t enjoying the largesse associated with controlling funds unfairly extracted from 20, 000 odd students struggling to get through Uni.
Keep yelling, keep striking, makes no matter.
Things are changing…move on
After settling down post Cape York a phone call from my younger sister remined me that the escapism offered by four-wheel-driving to the Cape has a use-by-date and it has expired.
My 85 year old Mother has recently moved into an aged hostel and she is now stressing about her home. My younger sister, still with family at home, is trying to do all the organization herself and my Mother’s pleas to come over and help can’t be ignored.
Who amongst us can ignore maternal plea’s?
Ait tickest are reasonably priced but I would need a car for mobility during the “sell the house” period and therein lies the difficulty. About $4,000 to hire a car for a month.
I have decided to drive.
The problem is my mother lives in Albany, WA and I live in Brisbane. To put that in perspective for foreign readers, I am driving the equivalent of London to Newfoundland, London to hundreds of kilometers east of Moscow or New York to San Francisco and then back again.
I could almost rename my blog ‘On the Road Again’ permanently.
What’s wrong with these people, Age readers all of them?
Don’t they understand what’s going on in the world?
In
this article from the BBC, Tony Blair has called for tougher laws and a global drive to tackle the “evil” ideology behind the London bombings.
Talks are to begin on bringing in new laws covering preparations for attacks and to make it easier to deport people trying to “incite hatred“, he told MPs.
We need something like that here in Australia.
Catch a Cleric preaching jihad….send him back home…..immediately…..without appeal.
Another report has been released detailing ‘abuse’ at Guantonamo Bay.
Aljazeera carry the story on their front page alongside reports of terrorists blowing up kids in a free chocalate queue in Baghdad and British police attempts to sort out the London bombing attrocity.
But looking into FBI reports of abuse, the investigators found multiple instances at the prison, including the use of duct tape on at least one prisoner’s face, a threat to kill another prisoner’s family, and inappropriate touching by female interrogators.
Oh, my God…duct tape over the terrorists face. How barbaric.
Almendha goes one better by carrying a story of an art exhibition in Rome with
Guantonamo Abuse as a
theme.
To be sure, it’s a weird world we live in.
Well, it’s all doom and gloom in the labour and union ranks as they predict the end of civilized society as we know it with Howard’s IR reforms.
As the IR laws haven’t been submitted to the house yet I must presume they are basing their predictions, as they are often do, on the premise that anything coming from the Conservative benches must be bad for the worker.
The unfair dismissal laws are getting a hiding as the Unions predict every honest and loyal servant will be sacked at the whim of the boss for trivial misdemeanours, but any employer acting that way is simply going downhill fast. The only people who need fear unfair dismissal laws are those bludging slugs that hitherto, bosses have been forced to keep on as it was simply to expensive to dismiss them.
Rob Corr, over at
Red Rag is attacking with both barrels loaded with emotive language cartridges.
Courts may face a shortage of jurors…..granny had better get used to those kerosene baths…..anyone who wants a pay rise will be forced to sign away their holidays and the proposed scrapping of unfair dismissal laws will silence whistle-blowers
and mentions
….job security should comes first with corporate profits and conservative ideology a distant last.
Maybe, but the worker better hope his company has corporate profits – it’s the source of his wages after all
Labor’s new advocate and Primate of the Anglican church, Dr Phillip Aspinall, says;
The purpose of unfair dismissal laws is to prevent unfair dismissals. If a change there means we’re going to allow unfair dismissals — that is, expose vulnerable people to unfairness — that is a real concern, not only to the churches but the whole community.
This emotive, simplistic and illogical statement doesn’t hold water as the purpose may have once been to prevent unfair dismissals but in reality it ended up preventing any dismissal for almost any reason and therefore does need changing.
The Unfair Dismissal laws, in fact, became Guaranteed Employment-for-life laws and has subsequently held back many businesses by forcing them to carry deadweight.
And the best plug for IR Reform is Paul Keating saying we don’t need it.
Back at the desk in Brisbane. Unfortunately it’s still only 15 degrees celcius but I can’t insist on perfect weather all the time.
I checked in at A.E.Brain’ site and found a link to London Calling. I have included it on the right hand menu. Go read as it emphasises the fact that we are at war and it could well get worse.
I have a lot of admin to do and Legacy are demanding my presence but I will now post regularly again after having all my batteries recharged.
Currently resident at Fishery Falls, NQ – just 10 odd kilometers north of Babinda at the house of an old Army friend Denis Quick. Denis has a weekly column in the Townsville Bulletin on current and historic defence matters and has agreed to providing guest posts on kevgillett.net and this will commence on my return to Brisbane. Another opinion can only help.
The trip has been uneventful in respect of vehicle or tyre damage with poor fishing (inclement weather) but I have met some very interesting characters and will post on them later.
The Discovery handled the Old Telegaraph Track with ease and in due course I will post pics of the car going vertical into river crossings and climbing river exits that no sane vehicle owner would attempt.
This week promises a few days R & R on Magnetic Island out of Townsville, a few beers with old army mates and then home by the weekend when my leave pass runs out.
Until then.
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