Un petit jardin vertical.

 

Now that the weather is promising to get cooler one way of staying warm is to keep busy. Living on your own the temptation seems to lure one into sitting or just standing and ponder. Not that the ponder goes deep into delving or questioning the philosophical side of things, but more into what I should do next.  The ponder into doing next can be tantalisingly close to a lot more of nothingness when at my age and my singular existence, time is of such abundance. I don’t have to catch the 401 bus at  6.30 in the morning to work or have urgent meetings to discuss a takeover of a multinational.

Of course, with the practice of social isolation the art of pondering can rise to much greater heights than ever before. ‘Singular isolation’ would be a better term than ‘social isolation’ which seems a contradiction or oxymoron. The word social means , group, community, collective.

Perhaps it is meant to sooth the right wingers amongst us in accepting the word ‘social’  when we all know that word for many to be a call to arms and arrest anyone who dares to even think of that dreaded word. We all know where that takes us. Morrison must have laid awake for hours trying to navigate around it. Alas, he could not get it past some of his more reasonable minsters, and so the term Social isolation was born.

To get out of my torpor during this isolation I undertook to do more gardening. The front yard faces a busy trainline and I get a kick out of waving to the passengers on the trains on their way to Sydney or coming from Melbourne. It is as close to keeping in touch with people without risking infections.. There are also numerous goods trains, some of them carry well over a hundred carriages all pulled along by just one diesel fuelled locomotive. I also wave to the locomotive driver.

My garden is perhaps about 100 square metres in total and my intention is to transform it into a small forest consisting of many birch and other deciduous trees. In between the trees will be small bushes and on different levels. I hope that eventually I will be able to take small walks between the trees with an occasional stop to do more pondering. I started to also grow my own herbs in the garden at the back of my place.

Here is it,

Waiting for its first herbs. I bought a flat pack box which I thought was one of those that click together without nuts or bolts or the need for tools. When I opened the flat box, to my horror rolled out a small packet of screws and nuts, 36 in total. It was a job and half to put it together and I almost gave up. I had Helen here who comes once a fortnight to help calm me down and sane. She also gave me a nice haircut. Here it is.  But, never buy a flat pack that holds nuts and bolts.

Here it is; Haircut by Helen.

The main job for the forest has started in earnest and I have bought four birch trees so far; and that is just the beginning. The metal box shown on the photo was a delight to put together and did not need tools or used any bolts or nuts. I put it together in 5 minutes. I bought a mixture of soil, turkey and cow manure but was surprised how many bags went into this metal L shaped box.

Here it is: metal box.

It might be hard to visualise a small forest but believe me, it will happen! I sold my old place in Bowral and will have the money to indulge in this idea of creating a magic forest. It will happen for sure. As for my previous post in my wish for a possible liaison with a soft and friendly female to alleviate the solitude of bed and breakfast on my own.  Not many enquiries so far.

I’ll keep you informed.

 

 

 

Folding bedsheets.

oosterman etching

It is not a new or a recent discovery that the running of modern households is often done by two people or even more, organised in such a way that is fairly shared. Perhaps before the invention of beds, clothes and footwear, the only thing to organise was the hunting and gathering of food, eating and sleeping with, of course, the occasional curious but well-known joining of bodies with up-down rhythmic shudderings lasting a few seconds, ensuring that life would go on in caves and other hollowed out interconnected warrens fit enough for human habitation.   Life was simple and there were no issues of life-style. Keeping up with Joneses wasn’t much more than perhaps having a bigger cave or better accuracy with the spear throwing.

Swivelling chairs, smart TVs or Apps were unknown, and so were washing machines, irons, vacuum cleaners, electric toothbrushes, dishwashers, air conditioning, hotplates, refrigerators, wine racks, dictionaries, Facebooks, tablets, micro waves, crosswords, (including cryptic) climate change, coal, Morrison, Hawaii, sport grants, Fitted Sheets.

Most of the above items would be familiar to most readers. Perhaps even owned by them. I have found out that I have been sleeping on top of fitted sheets for many years and now that I am widowed am slowly coming to terms in washing and folding them. I haven’t yet reached the much wanted stage of logic and rationality that I have stopped wanting what I can’t have anymore, ever, and that is Helvi…

The best I can do is to continue doing domestic things, as much as possible without hesitation or fear,  and hope the evening comes and I can fall in a deep sleep while still in my chair, slowly slipping into a heavenlike unconsciousness whereby most nights, I do spend with Helvi, albeit in dreams but her voice is real, and I am with her. On awakening in my own bed through some miracle, (perhaps levitational moving about) I find Milo on the floor next to my socks. He nudges me to get up and let him out.

I have to fold the sheets

And so, the next day starts and I put on the kettle for a cup of tea and look around what needs doing. Perhaps a quick vacuum? No, I have to fold the sheets I took out of the cloth- dryer the night before. I can’t dry washing outside. Since the bush- fires ash is still falling from the sky and coats cars, plants, the roads and rooftops. We had some rain and it turned the ash into a frothy slush.

The aim in folding the bedsheets is to have them in such way as to make the bed look newly made with, if possible a fold in the exact middle making it easy to have equal sides hanging over the edge of the bed. The modern way of making beds is to first have a matrass cover. I suppose it is to save the matrass of getting stains, from heaven knows what. (Nocturnal emissions or involuntary bowel/intestinal leakages.?)

Anyway, just leaving that aside. Above the matrass cover at least on my bed I have a ‘fitted sheet’. This is a queen size sheet that have the corners turned and sewn in such a way as to form a loop around the corners of the matrass. If sewn properly it makes a perfected tight fit on which to put a normal queen size top-sheet. Those fitted sheets are hard to fold neatly so I have found it best to just give up on folding them neatly and just roll them up in a fashion hoping for the best.

Of coarse making the double bed was always a job for both of us but on my own I now leave it to a good friend who every two weeks renews my sheets and makes the bed. The first night in a newly made bed with crispy sheets is very nice and I go early to bed so I can enjoy it while still awake for some time. She also cleans the house, top to bottom and as a good friend of Helvi is a wonderful companion who knows to listen to my woes and cries without criticisms or undue advice.

I never leave the bed unmade. Even on the fortnightly day the sheets gets taken off. It helps to have a discipline. I never really was much for routine but now I found out it helps.

It is a new situation I am in.

 

And now the murderous male.

What happened in New Zealand is beyond words. All of a sudden politicians are scrambling to try and take back some of the notion that free speech is one of our most cherished democratic rights. The availability of the killer’s video is now suddenly seen as over the top, and agents are desperately trying to take it down. Face-book, Google and a host of other websites are now being deleted of that video. Our own Prime Minister is full of indignation and now suddenly changing his rhetoric on Muslims and Refugees. It was only a couple of weeks ago, he called out that the Muslim refugees on Manus and Nauru held rapist and murderers.

The insincerity of Morrison was dripping down my TV screen. I felt like chucking an egg. Let’s not forget that Dutton’s demonising of refugees and Muslims could not have been honed any better either. He has been a bit quiet since the massacre! This terrorist, one of the world’s worst, is a dinky dye Aussie, as is the world’s most notorious paedophile, Mr Pell. It must be a bitter pill to swallow.

It’s been rather depressing that all of a sudden, free speech is getting a new look. When it comes to inciting hate and murder, I believe free speech should not be used as a vehicle urging others to violence. The racial prejudice, racial abuse and the covert urging of violence by the extreme right has been allowed to flourish as never before, all championed by our Politicians under the guise of ‘free speech.’ Australia is taking an example out of the US and to a lesser extend some European countries. Does Trump not call the Porte Ricans, Venezuelans, Mexicans scrambling over their borders, murders and drug pushers, killers. All bad people?

We are going to see Stan and Ollie. It is supposed to be a good movie. We have had a good run of seeing good movies. First is was ‘The Green Book’, excellent film. Then ‘The Favourite’, which was a spiel on the lesbian antics of queen Anne. Good movie too. Last but not least, The Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen.) A fantastic movie as well.

“Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see
I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I’m easy come, easy go
A little high, little low”
Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me, to me

 

 

 

The illogical and immoral Male.

 

Mr S. Morrison and Mr P. Dutton (reflecting on refugees)

 

Not even a Kafka or an Edgar Allan Poe could have thought up the idea of locking up thousands of innocent people in order to stop drownings of people desperate to escape murder and mayhem from their home country.  It just doesn’t make sense. No one wants people to drown, and the suggestion by Australia’s Prime Minister, Mr Scott Morrison, that those opposed to locking up refugees, now in their sixth year, will be responsible for new cases of drownings, is just too silly for words. It begs the question; are we still living in a world of science and rational thought? Or could it be that this is how the male mind works? I say this, as it seems to be the domain of mainly males that are attracted to illogical thoughts.  Things have gone haywire with Morrison, Dutton & Co.

It is perplexing how a country’s leader could ever have reached such an abominable stage whose thought processes must border on the mentally unstable. Some argue that, this Government’s action on the indefinite locking up of refugees on Manus and Nauru is particularly bad considering that our PM, Mr Morrison, proclaims to be a devout Christian. He belongs to a  Pentacostal church whose parishioners sometimes break out in a religeous fervor, and start speaking in tongues.

Some are claiming the opposite. It’s precisely the result of those adhering to the non-questioning and under the suppressive and superstitious shadows of religion and the subsequent irrationality of demons and retributive spirits, that causes those male politicians to behave in such an appalling way. In any case, the refugees are still going mad and as the years go by, the toll will rise, and even, when finally taken in by some other country, their trauma  will last.

Australia will stand condemned forever.

 

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door—
“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
“‘Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”( Edgar Allan Poe)

Iceland fixed the banking crisis by letting them fail.

 

The idea that in Australia the banks will get punished for their appalling behaviour will not eventuate. It will be business as usual. It might be worth looking how Iceland got out of a similar crisis.

“The 2008 global financial crisis hit Iceland hard. The currency crashed, unemployment soared and the stock market was more or less wiped out.

But unlike other Western economies, the Icelandic government let its three major banks – Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landsbankinn – fail and went after reckless bankers. Many senior executives have been jailed and the country’s ex-prime minister Geir Haarde was also put on trial, becoming the first world leader to face criminal prosecution arising from the turmoil. although he was subsequently cleared of negligence.

So what can – or should – other countries learn from how Iceland responded?”

Seeing that the LNP refused a royal commission 26 times in Parliament, the question arises if our present, Scott Morrison and the former PM Malcolm Turnbull, should also be put under scrutiny and prosecuted if shown to have failed in their duty to protect the citizens from the banking rorts. Dead people were sold insurances and financial packages! It has been a national ‘free for all’ rip off. An orgy of terminal capitalism.

The rich getting richer, the poor poorer.

Have a look at how things can be turned around. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35485876

 

A case made for change.

With the present heat-wave seemingly continuing, it presses home climate change. People were shown on TV, cooking eggs on their car roofs. In one case someone was also baking butter-cookies on the bitumen road. The Government through radio and TV urged people to conserve energy, not use the washing machine, TVs, irons, and limit hot water. They feared electric outages. That fear was realised when in Victoria there were electric outages affecting 200.000 people for up to two hours. But, to start cooking on the top of cars or on the hot bitumen is not for the elderly. We can go without cookies or eggs for two hours. In any case, here in Bowral we had no outages and did not see any outdoor cooking by pensioners.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-25/extreme-heat-for-victoria-melbourne-hottest-day-in-a-decade/10748330

It is absolutely astonishing that in Australia with so much sun and wind, governments have neglected to provide for such a comparative small population enough energy to not run short during hot days or very cold days. One of the reasons is of course, that this government is of a horse and buggy era. They believe in a flat earth and chicken feather future telling. It is so neglectful I wonder if a court case could be mounted by a clever lawyer suing the government for neglect? People are dying out of climate change neglect, and the government is responsible.

All housing, with proper planning, could have double glazing and reverse-cycle air-conditioning as being part of standard construction. Dark roofs should be banned, especially in the hot northern states. I notice that seas of charcoal roofs on houses are spreading around Sydney’s outer edges. Are the inhabitants going to fry eggs on their roofs, or make a lamb-curry (with lots of turmeric) on the dark concrete driveway? Is this what Messrs. Dutton, Abbott, and Morrison want?

Anyway, folks. The end of being deprived by reasonable Governments is nigh. Ministers of the Liberals are lining up in resigning. The few women in this government have left of bullying by rogue males. Some wit wrote, ‘that the only woman left in parliament is Christopher Pine. Very witty, I thought. Let’s hope that the Liberals will be gone for at least ten years and that the Labour will fulfil at least the obligation to wholeheartedly fund renewable energy. It’s not rocket science. It is proving itself all over the world. We should be leading not lagging.

A peculiar lack of Empathy.

The new member of Parliament in the Federal seat of Wentworth is now Dr Kerryn Phelps.  She is an independent. A stunning victory whereby this seat held since Federation by the Liberals has changed for the first time overcoming a 19% majority held by the previous ex-Prime Mister, Malcolm Turnbull. He vacated the seat after he was turfed out by his own Government. He quickly left Australia for NYC.

Dr Kerryn Phelps was known for her strong stance on Same Sex Marriage with Wentworth being one of the most progressive pro SSM seats during last year’s referendum. She now wants the Government to take notice of climate change. The refusal to act on climate change is partly due because the right wing of the Liberals, including the present PM, Scott Morrison, don’t believe in climate change. The right wing of the Liberal party primarily believe in keeping the status quo. They like nothing better than sticking to burning coal and a fearless unrelenting punishments for off-shore held refugees.

The present Liberal-National party has lost their one seat majority. Things are going to be difficult to pass legislation with the independent cross benchers now holding the strings.

Dr Phelps promises to  use her independence to get the Government to take urgent action on climate change, and to bring the refugees home to Australia. At present they are held on off-shore islands; Manus, Nauru and Christmas Island. A petition signed by thousands of doctors presented to the Government is demanding that the children and their parents be allowed into Australia for processing. http://medicalrepublic.com.au/doctors-unite-drive-change-refugee-policy/17267

The Government might well have to be forced to take action on the refugees. The rumblings of international criticisms of our present policy on refugees are getting louder. The abhorrence on learning that children of ten are googling how to commit suicide, the sacking of all Medicine sans Frontier personal from Nauru is pointing out the cruelty of off-shore detention.

The Government is now also finally heeding the offer from New-Zealand willing to take 150 refugees from Nauru. So far the Morrison and previous Turnbull Government have refused to consider this proposal.  They argue, that it would give the refugees a ‘back-door’ chance to visit Australia. However, the US has taken a couple of hundred refugees without this apparent condition being attached to their freedom from the Nauru hell-hole! Is it so much more difficult to come to Australia from the US as it is from New Zealand ? The mind boggles.

Where does this urge to keep punishing those vulnerable refugees come from? I found some observation by the Australian Author and academic,  Jill Kerr Conway enlightening. Jill Kerr Conway was the first woman to take the Presidency of the Smith College in the US. She found Australia to be lacking in appreciating women for top jobs and moved permanently to the US. She died a few months ago, aged 84. Her book, ‘The road from Coorain,’ is a masterpiece.

She seems to argue that the hundreds of  thousands of emigrants who left their European homelands to go to the US, Canada, and Australia, must have keenly felt the pains of being up-rooted  suffering aching alienation. The children of the great European migration made up for this loss by, in the US at least, making Hollywood the purveyor of happy endings. This convention was a comfort for those who might have felt or were unwilling to face the possibility that the journey was not worth the uprooting.

In Australia I always thought that the migrants made the best of it by going wildly overboard by the ‘own-home’ on ‘own block of land’ achievements. A peculiar Australian phenomenon. It seems to have calmed down lately. Many young people are happy to ditch this form of idealisation and are now happily renting.

In any case, not much seems to have been studied on how this migration has been part in forming the Australia psyche. How many have studied the history of how it felt like to be transported to Australia, by the convicts, or the children of men and women condemned to forced labor? Has this early convict start and continuation of it by those hundreds of thousands of migrants milling around the fore-shores and migrant camps given the foundation to this ‘muddling through’ within our own political milieu?

Again,  our Prime Minister Mr. Morrison has reiterated that if some of the refugees were to be transferred to New Zealand from Manus, its (New Zealand) Government must give an iron clad guaranty that none of them or their children, will ever be given or allowed a visa to Australia. Not even for a holiday.

Ignoring why refugees would even want to visit the land of their torturers, how insanely revengeful is this proposal? It shows how deliberate and wilful the utter degradation of refugees, so desired by some of our politicians, has become. What have the refugees done?

Let’s all hope Dr Phelps will help to make an end to this sad history and restore Australia’s world standing.

Where does the cruelty come from though?

 

Will the Refugees on Nauru be allowed into Australia?

Inside the race for Wentworth

A storm is brewing in Sydney’s fanciest suburbs, where some lifelong Liberal voters have told the ABC they are preparing to break ranks for the first time at the looming Wentworth by-election.

It is a fair bet, and I hope it will, that this blue-ribbon seat will go to the independent Kerryn Phelps. This Liberal seat was last held by our former Prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who was  sacked a few weeks ago by his own party. The present PM, Scott Morrison is a fervent Pentecostal  believer holding anti SSM opinions. He is now fighting to keep a law in place that will allow Government funded private religious schools keep the right to sack gay or LBGTQ teachers. This has caused a furore in Australia whose residents voted overwhelmingly in favour of Same Sex Marriage less than a year ago. The seat of Wentworth has been held by the Liberals since Federation.

This Prime Minister also proudly displays a small trophy on his desk showing a metal coloured boat, backed by a timber board with the lettering, “we stopped the Boats.”Mr Morrison is mightily proud he was so successful in keeping thousands of refugees on several off-shore islands, including the small island nation of Nauru. As you all know, the tragedy of those that have spent years on those islands have been subjected to the worst torture of all, the loss of all hope. Last week the Government of Nauru kicked out the only few remaining people volunteering for Medicine Sans Frontières who helped the refugees with their unimaginable plight of staying alive.

The residents of Wentworth, although traditionally liberal, do hold a much more progressive ideology and were second of having the most votes in favour of SSM. They also do not like the way both the Liberals and the Labor party keep refusing to abide by international law to allow refugees, irrespective of their mode of travel, to be dealt with humanely and on-shore. There is now an increasingly growing disquiet about the plight of refugees held off-shore. It has become a large issue in Wentworth and the rest of Australia. People are concerned about the international consequences of flaunting international law.

Will Australia say ‘I am sorry’ in a few years time? Please read the link below.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/14/kerryn-phelps-urges-wentworth-voters-to-use-byelection-to-protest-inhumane-refugee-policies

Unbelievable!

Etching

This Government in all its stupendous and magnificent stupidity has decided to blind- test welfare recipients for alcohol and drugs. It will do so through compulsory blood tests. Can you believe this? Anyone tested positive will be black-listed and only receive half their welfare entitlement. Subsequent further positive results will deny them 100% of their welfare payments.

They will try and enhance their chances of catching those addicts by testing sewer effluence. It is hoped that the Government’s welfare officers (police) get greater accuracy in pin-pointing the residential areas where those unfortunate souls might be living.

Our treasurer, Mr Scott Morrison was salivating when announcing this latest compulsory random blood-testing  ‘innovation’ as part of his latest budget. His face all religious and with devout evil intent.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/story-streams/federal-budget-2017/2017-05-11/budget-2017-live-blog-bank-tax-bill-shorten-reply/8516160

It is hoped this will bolster a much needed revenue bonus for the Government who are desperately finding ways to give the promised 50 Billion tax cuts to the big Australian  businesses.

Can you believe this? Despite all that’s known about addiction, this government is ignoring the world’s best advice; punishing is never the answer. It will make things a lot worse. Experts know that it is help that is needed, not punishment. Punishment only works in making it reverse and worse. Has this Australian Government ever heard the word ‘rehabilitation?’

Yet it is rehabilitation that is in such short supply. The few re-habs that are available do this by charging enormous fees and are run on profit first and rehabilitation last. They take advantage of desperate parents forking out thousands in the hope the children will come back. This story rings a bell, doesn’t it? So it is with most Government ‘services’ all run for profit. The few free facilities’ are run by well meaning but totally untrained personnel. It relies on outdated methods, are woefully underfunded. They are so few in numbers with so many in a queue that it requires for addicts to hang on for months and months, just waiting. Many give up even trying. It is a misconception that help is available. By and large it is not.

But when it gets to punishing, oh there is plenty and more in the pipe-line, much more. You just watch! The dreaded inspector is snooping under beds and around sewage and toilets now. Sniffer dogs well trained. Catching addicts in the hollow of the night, screaming, muffled sounds, strapped down for compulsory blood test. No more welfare. Thrown on the heap. The desperation thickening.

The crowbar taken out. Your place is next!

Woe those that save and live frugally

There is always that pull to and fro of our past. Some say, don’t look back. But with age comes an oversupply of what has been and much less of what is yet to come. I am talking of time, not substance. It’s most unlikely that at the age of seventy-seven one contemplates joining the army or seek a career in investment banking. Sure, some go climb mount Everest or take up the piano, but most contemplate things and end up rummaging around in memories. I do.

One of the good things that was ingrained still occupies my train of thoughts. It was one my parents main input. ‘Live within your means. Save for what you want and don’t waste.’  This was also reinforced by the political system back in Holland. The era of consumerism never took The Netherlands in the same way it was embraced by Australia. Buying things on credit was unheard of. Today, this very different and the credit card is also embraced. Even so, some national habits are well ingrained. I believe even eating raw herrings is as much a pastime now as it was when I lived there. Saving is still held in high esteem.

This might well be the reason that of all the countries in the world, The Netherlands now hold the enviable record of 103 quarters of uninterrupted economic growth.  While much of that growth is contributed to cutting welfare and taxes and giving corporations greater freedom, Holland still enjoys a generous welfare system. Excluding costs of education, Holland spends 24.3 % of GDP (Gross Domestic Products) and comes in fairly high on the list of welfare spending. Australia spends 18% and  this is towards the lower end of world’s foremost economies. The US is the fourth lowest on welfare spending at 14.8%.

The Dutch pension gets paid irrespective of being poor or rich. Everyone who turns 65 gets it. It is a state insurance scheme whereby every one who works or has worked in the Netherlands gets a pension when turning 65. It is roughly 2% for every year that one has worked in Holland

http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/Social-welfare-spending/%3E-%25-of-GDP/Excluding-education

This is all about our experience on how saving in Australia is being punished.  Since about two months ago the government changed tack on pensions. Those with savings above a certain limit would either get the old-age pension lowered or totally taken away. We lost our pension. It seems, that in Australia it is best to whoop it up and spend, spend. Burn your money, go gambling, load up your credit card, run up debts. You will ensure you get the pension.

https://www.svb.nl/int/en/aow/wat_is_de_aow/wie_krijgt_aow/

And by the way, the Dutch pension is about 70% 0f average wage instead of 40% in Australia. So, next time you hear Turnbull or Morrison going on how Australia is some kind of social paradise. It is NOT. We are pretty stingy when it comes to social welfare.