Changes

I have interacted with people for the last 33 years. People from all walks of life, rich, poor, young, old, all colours, shapes and sizes. Most really good people, peppered with the occasional nasty.
It has been a wonderful experience, from the solomn to the outright nutty.

All this ended in May when I was relocated to the quiet of my once Reiki room, now office.
Not because I wanted it but because it was needed.

It has been quite an adjustment.

I feel some days that I'm under house-arrest and welcome with open arms a chance to slip out for an hour, I miss the Saturday mornings with Rowland, even if it's just off to the shops, it's a real treat,
it always was a treat but now extra special.

I believe the separation has taken its toll on Rowland but we have both managed to adjust to our new
lifestyle, I see no change on the horizon.

We, as a couple, are an optimistic pair and have weathered many storms together. Many! but throughout we've had each other for support and comfort and now is no different.

I believe the way forward is to go to plan b or c or w but always have a plan for a good future.

More on this to follow.

Time flies

So, it's just on a year since my last post, sorry but you know the old expression about life throwing a curveball (never understood the curveball thing), such is life.
Tomorrow number one son will be 46 - yikes it's only ten years ago that he was born - or so it seems. Life has changed so much since Sion, Samantha and Timothy enriched our lives forever, spouses, grandchildren life ever-expanding. Such joy.
We were chatting about lousy television yesterday and it brought back memories of the stuff we loved. Marleze pointed out that there are hardly any T.V. programmes they can watch as a family, not so when our kids were young.
Magnum PI, McGuiver, Knightrider, The A Team, that helicopter pilot thingy and lots more, so much more good entertainment that would no doubt be considered silly by today's standards. But standards were set, honesty, the good guys winning, hard work, initiative and so on. What kind of example are any of the "sports" we see? Sledging on the cricket field - do they kiss their mothers with those lips? poor losers ganging up on the winner and stomping him to the ground in wrestling, it may be fake but it's still the wrong message.Doping, apparently across the board so what's the point in hard work if you can take a performance enhancer and whine about it when you're caught out?
In fact, nothing much has changed in a year so how do we bring about change? I honestly don't know but perhaps the best way is the old fashioned way, by example.
There are still so many people the world over who live good lives, who think of others, not in a do-gooder way but by actually doing good. Let them be the sportsmen and women of the future, let's see the banks endorsing them rather than golfers and rugby players. I know the banks do in fact support many but they don't brag about it the way they brag about sport sponsorship.
Let's not allow the media to manipulate us any longer, why watch junk on T.V. when you can read a book, carry on with a hobby or project and save T.V. time for the quality programmes we are occasionally shown.
Say BOO to big fat gypsey, home dinner, secret island tribe, worm eating, rib kicking, weight losing, spouse cheating, kinky soapie, gyrating soft porn music making people and say WELCOME BACK to life.
I'll try to pop in again soon xxx

Oh The times They are a Changing

We bought a Bob Dillon CD at the weekend - yes folks, we do still pay for music and movies, quaint I know. It's good listening but it also started me thinking how different life is now.

I read the on-line newspapers most days so you can imagine my shock when I clicked on to one of the "overseas" papers only to be confronted by silly schoolgirls baring their boobs.

Why do they do that? are we moving back in time to when girls were so undervalued?  I read an article, probably 15 years ago, about the scantily clad singers of the day. Well, they were quite modest compared to modern standards although I hear there may be a return to the less revealing styles.

Over the years I watched Sally Fields campaign for a tampon machine in the ladies restrooms, Charleze Theron being dumped in pooh, the ladies of the Ford factory striking for equal pay. What do we have now, after all the real effort put in to equality? silly girls who place no value on themselves, eager to do anything to get a boyfriend. Sad.They seem only to aspire to be another fat-ass reality star. As if the world needs any more.

I imagine that's how Madiba feels, years in jail being rewarded by greedy upstarts who think only of themselves.

We watch reruns of That 70's Show. It's good fun and illustrates how turned around modern times are.. Respect for elders, respect for others and respect for self are really high on my agenda and I get really angry when I hear of young girls doing the stuff grungy old porn movies were made of as easily as buying a new tshirt.

Or so I'm told.

We had a big family function recently. Rowland's Mom's 90th Birthday. A sit down lunch for 38. I was immensly proud when one of the guests praised our grandchildren

"I've never seen such well behaved teenagers at a do like this, well done"

"Well done kids, we're always proud of you"

I hope that there are many, many more level headed youngsters than stupid ones like the bare boob girls, our future needs leaders of substance who can live a fun life but still have the sense to think before they act and consider the consequences of their actions. I'm fortunate to know many fine young people, hard working, intelligent, silly sometimes but seemingly honest people, I salute them and hope that the few won't spoil the future for the many so, cover that chest and get on with life - it's well worth living.

Colour Me Disillusioned

Or naive.
I had assumed that the competitors in the Olympics, talented thought they may be, were all amature sportsmen and women. In fact I had bemoned the fact that professional tennis and soccer players were entered, it seemed rather unfair, why not allow the young amatures a chance?
How wrong I am. It seems all the contestants can be classed as professionals, they receive pay for what I had foolishly believed was the honour of representing your country.
This morning on our local radio station the opinion seemed to be that if the cricket and rugby players earn so much, why not the athletes.
My take on that is why do the sportsmen earn so much money to begin with? I consider it shocking that a man is paid upwards of $1 000 000.00 for playing a round of golf and as much as I love Man United really, what outrageous wages.
I understand that coaches are needed to help the young athlete and that coaching may be his bread and butter, what I don't understand is the absurd amount of money it take to raise a swimmer (for example).
Does it, in fact, boil down to  the country with the most money  always being the winner? or the country that directs more of it's resources toward sport?
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see nations direct their spare cash toward sport rather than war but what happened to the glory of wearing the green and gold, the pride in representing your nation, 100 000 British Pounds is a cool bonus but I didn't expect to see such large "prizes" going around.
O.K. I'm off to brush up on my shopping skills, perhaps one day it'll be an Olympic sport.

Guilty as charged

Well, Susan is right, I have fallen off lately and Rowland was the one to point out her blog to me last night. Congratulations Susie, well deserved. Actually, well deserved doesn't quite cut it because Susan's blog is more like a chronicle of her and Jake's life which should surely be printed and put onto the bookshelf. You know I'm not totally into this newfangled cloud storage stuff - what if it rains?
I was going to do a blog last week, "to tweet or not to tweet" but sadly life took over and now it's another 7 days  just gone in a flash.
Where do people find the time to email, blog, tweet, watch UTube, read all their contacts on Linkedin, catch up on Facebook, read (as I do) IOL, Sky News, Perth Now, check the weather report, delete junk mail, read newsletters from various worthy causes - Treehugger, Greenpeace, Avaaz, Hempster, Green Times, Rawlicious, Reiki News - and still get on with the job they're being paid to carry out????
I resolve to be a good blogger, I shall post at least once every ten days and will do my best to do my duty to the blogging community.

Really I will.

But don't expect photos, I'm not in Susan's league :-)

What a strange world

We have been watching and listening to news about the Euro bail-out plans. It's hard for me to understand how such huge figures are bandied about, surely only figures on paper, not paper money.
 Greece, with a population of 10 million wants 110 BILLION Euros, Spain with a population of 43 million needs a mere 100 BILLION.
I'm not the best there is when it comes to budgeting and saving but really, billions?
. I've asked before, how much money is there in the world? How can the world Bank have a bail-out budget of 500 Billion (I believe). where does the money come from? Is there an undisclosed Fort Knox somewhere filled with gold bars?
And, if there's so much money in this world, why are people starving to death in Africa?
According to "100 People: A World Portrait"  if there were but 100 people in the world 21 would be overweight (we know where they live), 15 would be under nourished. What does that mean, under nourished? it sounds scary, I just ate my lunch, it's only 11 a.m. but I was feeling peckish. Under nourished sounds far, far beyond peckish.
1 person of those 100 would be dying of starvation.
Yet there's a 500 billion stash to bail out Europe.

Nobody does it like the Brits

I wasn't able to watch the whole four days of celebration, Queen Elizabeth 2nd, her Diamond Jubilee. What a long weekend!
What struck me most was the sheer joy on the faces of the crowds who followed HM's every move. I thought the flotilla was marvelous and we're a quarter way through the concert. Some sad, jaded critic thought the flotilla abysmal (I think he wrote) and why have Lang Lang perform when there are British pianists available. No doubt there are and probably as good but it was the Queen's party and perhaps he's the one she wanted, perhaps she wanted to hear Cliff again, creaking though he is although, I'm not sure she requested Cheryl Cole
One person remarked that without the royal family Great Britain would just be Britain, I agree because no one else seems to understand and carry off the pomp and circumstance that fascinates the rest of the world.
How about the car ride? no dozen or so, black clad security persons running along side the car, presumably no heavily armed "peace" officers on standby. Just a jolly good weekend, which would be exhausting for any 86 year old lady and which showed the warm and loving side of (most of) the nation.
She's my Queen and I was gosh darned proud of her and her family, just sorry I couldn't be there.