Hot Hot Hot

I thought it was hot last night. The minimum last night was 24, it got to 31 this afternoon before a short, sharp downpour. We've had the a/c on since 3pm.



I think Rene has had a lot of people through the gallery today. A lovely young German couple came back and bought a painting - they'd been here a fortnight ago to look around. I had a brief chat as I drove in from shopping - I have a new, bright shirt for the dinner on Tuesday night - they appeared to be a charming, delightful young couple. It's often easy to be weighed down by the dross of life one encounters, but in the main folk are fantastic and well worth making the effort to get to know.

Tonight it's Greek salad, some bread, bottle of chilled white, relaxing on the deck. I'm doing a butterfly lamb leg on the BBQ tomorrow night. Rene and I love our food, and drink.



One week to go before the vacation starts. Oh happy days!

Woolies UK Gone!

I remember the gold letters F.W.WOOLWORTHS on a red surround above many stores in my childhood. I remember coming to Australia and seeing 'just' Woolworths above the stores here. I read this morning that the British company of some 100 years operation is bankrupt. Gone! The British stores became independent in 1982. The British company has outlasted its original US parent, which closed its final Woolworths stores in 1997. The Australian Woolies are independent and doing remarkably well here. Still, it makes you think.

The lower picture is of our local Woolworths at Nundah Village here in Brisbane. The classic Mustang in the foreground probably belongs to a local collector who has a garage fitted out for five cars under his house.


We're having tea tomorrow afternoon at my brother Steve's place. He and Adele moved there around the time we moved in here, and it's our first visit. Later, in two weeks time, we are having a Christmas get together of all the Langdales here in the park beside our home here in Nundah.


Last night we arranged with our neighbours to have a street party on Christmas Eve down in the cul de sac.


Rumours abound of a neighbour up the road selling early in 2009 and something new being built there. I'll keep you posted.


The Mumbai saga still continues some 52 hours later. Up to 36 Australians unaccounted for still. The finger still points to outsiders involved in the action. Let's hope no further deaths occur from this well coordinated senseless act of terror.

The weekend is nigh AGAIN!

One week of school before over six weeks of vacation. We're getting curtains measured for supply and installation in January - at last! I'm also seeing about getting the back pathway done before Christmas. The holidays will be spent doing some gardening and improving the general appearance of the yard.

My friend Jack from New York is visiting early next year. This will be his third visit to Australia. That's something to really look forward to in April.

This week Rene and I are not going to trivia, instead we are attending the Dutch Alumni Association Sinterklaas dinner at the Customs House in the City. This should be fascinating since most conversation will be in Dutch and my little bit of Dutch has become seriously rusty over the four years since we left Holland. Four years! Amazing how the time has flown. It's incredible how much we have achieved in those few years. Our social life is rarely dull.The following night we entertain good friends Di and Torquil MacDonald celebrating Di's birthday. Posh Fish Pie is on the menu along with various other goodies. This should be a brilliant night, always lots of fun.

I booked four preview seats for the new Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelona on December 10. Ahh, Barcelona....Rene and I had such a fabulous time there in 2004. It'll be the second film I've seen this year with a city name in the title, the other being In Bruges (don't miss it!).
Enough, feel free to contact me. I love communication. Yesterday's mail brought the first Christmas card of the season, from a friend who lives in Kipford in Kircudbrightshire, Scotland. Jess, you are very quick indeed.

(It finally had to happen)

This evening our neighbours next door and across the road came across to sit on our deck and welcome the weekend. From 4:30 until around 9pm we talked about many things, drank several bottles of delicious Australian wine and generally chilled out together ready for another fantastic weekend. I'm seriously happy this evening as I write this concluding paragraph. Rene made a delicious late supper for us both. He's a treasure!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

I forgot to mention last night that the ladies from the Aboriginal community of Lajamanu really loathed being on the 15th floor of their Brisbane hotel last week. They moved after one night to the 4th floor, but one lady still hated it. Rene told me that one of the Gibson Desert visitors week before last wouldn't come out onto the deck one floor up here at home. I just wouldn't have thought it would be an issue. The world is a fascinating place.



The red dot is where Lajamanu is situated. It's on the edge of the Tanami Desert, 750km from Darwin.

Economic cutbacks by car companies has meant the cancellation today of next year's Brisbane Motor Show. Hard on the heels of the Chrysler announcement over the weekend that they wouldn't be exhibiting at a major American car show.


Rene's sister sent photos today of their very white garden in their town of Son in the south of Holland. Very cute, very cold, very inviting. With it being 30C here today in Brisbane it looked very tempting indeed, but deep down I know that it won't last more than a day or so and it'll be damned freezing to be out in. Still, very inviting...

EDIT: Last night I reported petrol at $1.08 - well, today I saw it at $1.00 (after a 4c discount). A nice Christmas present for Aussie summer holiday drivers.

Oil Plunges!!!

OK, I'm totally over all the media crap that's killing hope. Petrol reaches $1.65/L here in Australia - headlines and endless news items on heartache following higher costs for cars and plane travel. Now, the price of oil drops more than half - what do you hear? Nothing! OK, a small mention of it now and then. Why would the media want to focus on good news when $1.65 sounds so awful, yet I filled up at $1.08 this last week. $1.08! Where's the jubilation, the cheers, the applause? That doesn't sell. Fuel surcharges being reduced, even removed altogether by an Asian airline. Good news? Yes. Worth focusing on? No, we prefer gloom and doom, and we each and every one of us sanction this every day by buying newspapers that are frankly embarrassing and watching TV news that's quite below par. Even the ABC TV news last Sunday featured a cross promotion of the Howard years documentary going out on their own channel the next night - 4 minutes long - hey, this is supposed to be news? Anyway, the storm damage that had hit Brisbane received 3 minutes that night (granted, it had not long happened). News? Shame, Aunty, shame!

Confidence

There were a few signs of confidence in the media this week. A review of projects already commenced or about to commence made me feel more optimistic. The Albion project is already under way, so is North Shore Hamilton:

South Bank, over the railway station.
The RNA show grounds close to the city centre.

Roma Street, the station and bus terminal long overdue for redevelopment.Hamilton North Shore - close by to where we live. Already commenced.

Milton - over the railway station.

Below, Albion (near us) also featuring the redevelopment of the railway station and an old flour mill.

Tacky

Hotel Atlantis opened this week in Dubai. Impressive, flashy, all of this, but I suspect there are a lot of wealthy Arabs in the UAE with very small penises - this preoccupation with size is a worry. Perhaps they're just size queens?




Lajamanu


Friday night saw Rene and I out to yet another art event, this time the opening of a small exhibition of art from the Warnayaka Art Centre in Lajamanu, NT. We met a couple of lovely ladies from there last year when we drove from Darwin to Katherine, then on to Lajamanu on the edge of the Tanami Desert, and these two as well as other Aboriginal desert artists from there were here in town for an education program assisting them with pricing, displaying and promoting their art.


Interesting notes from the evening:1. The land is Gurindji where Lajamanu is situated, but three Walpiri communities were moved there in 1948. The land was officially handed to the Walpiri by the Gurindgi in a tribal ceremony yet the act has never been acknowledged by the Government, and 2. when the ladies passed some homeless people on the streets in inner Brisbane they asked if they should give them money, but were discouraged. They were almost in tears seeing these people on the streets. Back home they all have a home in their community somewhere.


Another dinner party

Will it never end? I hope not. Last night we had some regular friends over for dinner plus a new couple. He is a Dutch journalism student who has written about Rene's gallery, and he was accompanied by his delightful Polish born wife (an architect). What a pleasure it was to meet them. Rene cooked the dinner and I enjoyed the house being full of excited conversation. We know so many wonderfully interesting folk.


It had to happen eventually


Yes, the dreaded school reunion. I vaguely remember avoiding one before but today I had a call from a former Senior of 1968 asking if I'd be interested in a 40th anniversary reunion, and I sort of said 'yes'. I think I'm ready for it now; my head is in a good space and I have a very positive outlook on life. It's on December 13 in Toowoomba, so I can go. Rene's invited, but I think he'd rather swim across a crocodile infested waterway than be caught dead at a reunion, but the weird thing is that I'm rather fascinated to see what's happened to the various classmates. I know friends who have done this sort of thing throughout their lives, but for me this'll be the first and the last time. Think of the gossip I'll be able to write up in this blog....should be worth several meaty entries. Mind you, the stuff they'll report about me (haha!!)

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Social butterfly strikes again!

Yes, you all know how much I like to get out and about. This past week is no exception. Last Friday night we enjoyed our first Christmas party of the year at our old haunting ground, the Sunshine Coast. Our friend Sue from the Caribbean apartments where we once lived invited everyone across the road to the cafe for dinner and drinks. We wandered back across the road around 11pm - I sort of fell over in the process, no major wounds except to my pride and right foot (oh, and my right knee). The beer and wine certainly flowed well. A whole bunch arrived back at Sue's apartment for more drinks and merriment, and I fell asleep around 2:30 and dear old Rene (the consummate party goer) came to bed around 4am. We had to get back to Brisbane to open the gallery for 11am, I had to cook dinner for seven people that night up on our deck. The dinner party was terrific, the food a great success, but we were too tired to go to a pub afterwards when we had previously arranged to meet friends there. I'm afraid at 58 my powers of recovery are no longer in the super hero class.



Tuesday saw us at trivia. Thanks to all the people who helped with the photo question - it was in fact Roddy McDowell, from Batman TV series 1966, playing The Book Worm. Sadly our team still came fourth (but we had lots of fun).

Last night (Wednesday) just before the storm we attended the "Creative Southbank" function in the restaurant at the Southbank Institute of Technology where our friend Sue works in the Indigenous Arts School. Fabulous finger food, stunning wine and brilliantly displayed student works made for a stimulating evening. We toured the galleries, workshops, music studios etc in a complex just four months old. The facilities are phenomenal. Rene and I met a lovely didgeridoo player and artist called Ricky plus a student who has a brilliant past as a makeup and hair designer and is now learning more about other artistic fields. Adam was certainly the standout find of the night. His paintings and sketches are brilliant. One charcoal sketch called 'Indigenous Queen' so looks like the diva Eartha Kitt, whom he did makeup and wigs for when she toured here. Bris Vegans, go forth and venture into the facilities of Southbank. I guarantee you'll be amazed (sorry, the food and wine was just for the opening).

Tomorrow night we are attending the exhibition opening at Footsteps Gallery in the City of the artists from Lajamanu, the first art centre we visited in the Northern Territory last year. There will be some of the artists and the new art centre manager to meet. What fun! I hope I'm not burnt. I'm spending tomorrow at a swimming carnival with one of my schools. It is forecast to be 30 again tomorrow. Yuck!

Saturday sees us hosting another dinner party. This one is an Indonesian rice table prepared by Rene. We'll have four guests and many courses. Rene does this sort of food brilliantly. One of the guests is a Dutch journalist who has written several pieces on the gallery for Australian and Dutch magazines and newspapers.

Rene even got interviewed the other day over the phone by a newspaper in Toronto doing a piece on tourism in Australia. A recent sale to Italy plus a couple more to Germans visiting the country means every bit of publicity counts and can lead to further sales.

Storms ravage Brisbane three times (so far)

It certainly has been an amazing past few days. It's Thursday evening and storms have again hit parts of the city, localised flooding continues, and this is the fourth night in the last five nights. Tonight is 'minor' with only 4500 electricity consumers losing power. Sunday night saw 25% of the entire region losing power, and many didn't get it back on for 48 hours. Ghastly images emerged from suburbs near where one of my schools is situated.


This morning Rene and I woke up to water views, with the sound of rushing water quite audible from the deck. Rene took these pictures near our home after I went to school this morning. Kedron Brook was close to overflowing its banks but it was quite safe. This evening as I write it is still visible from the deck but lower, although the latest downpours across the city haven't flowed through yet. A good test on our site and the worst rains and damage since the 1974 floods that caused the city to come to a complete halt.


It's going to rain on and off all night again. I hope it doesn't cause even more chaos. Fortunately only two people have lost their lives. That is amazing considering the super cell storms are so erratic.

My brother Stephen's home was safe, just the power cut off for around 24 hours. My nephew Simon came close to inundation but was spared - just! Near Toowoomba where my brother Mark lives they had over 245mm of rain, that's around 10" in the old measurement. We had no damage at all, and even kept our power. We have been extremely lucky.


Damage from the storms has affected thousands of South East Queenslanders. Over 4000 homes damaged, around 40 uninhabitable. Many schools have been damaged, some closed. My brother Stephen's school at Morayfield was closed after 125mm of rain and strong winds damaged a few buildings and brought down dozens of trees. Many of my children this week have been very tired because they haven't slept through the night for ages. I know two teachers who lost roofs and another two who moved out of their bedrooms at 1:30am this morning for fear of sleeping near trees and power lines that might finally blow down. They didn't blow over, and they did get some sleep.

I forgot Rene

I meant to add a couple of pictures of Rene when he was in Central Australia last month with his sister and brother in law.

Here he is walking along the road to Kings Canyon. Note the sign that says next services are still 127km away. Also note the bitumen ended here.

Err, what's up doc? Rene and his sister having a typical Dutch snack. Claartje and Jan raved about the flavour of Australian vegetables and fruit. Not as force fed as a lot of European produce. I do have to be reminded of all this stuff, I sort of take it for granted.

Now the picture above is not from Central Australia. It's from across the path in front of our house here in Brisbane. A water dragon sunning himself on the branch of a tree. We are constantly amazed at just how fortunate we are to live in this beautiful house of ours in this idyllic part of Brisbane. Lovely!

A kookaburra on our back fence here in Nundah, Brisbane, capital of the known world! Yes, I admit, I do get a little carried away.

News at last!

OK, I'm not dead, but on occasions it felt like it. Yes, I came down a fortnight ago with that dreadful bug going around Brisbane that seems to attack the head, chest and that's all. I have had a dry ticklish cough for ages, but the serious symptoms long ago passed through my system.

I'm sure you are all extremely interested in what has ailed me (not!) so I'll move right along... Rene's gorgeous sister and new brother in law left a fortnight ago after having had a monumentally fabulous visit. No hitches, even their flight back home was without a hitch. They've seen more of Australia in five weeks than most Aussies. We miss them a lot.

(Claartje doing her 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' routine at King's Canyon).


Claartje and Jan have wasted no time at all back home getting their new holiday home in France in order ready to spend a fortnight at Christmas there. It was repainted while they were in Australia. Nice blue trim. Now, all Rene and I have to do is find our way to France to use the house as their guests. Such a nice thought, such an unlikely possibility for the foreseeable future, but one can dream.

One forgets about how fascinating visitors find our wildlife. A simple galah - all pink, grey and quite stupid, appears captivating, and in reality it is beautiful. It's lovely having visitors remind oneself of the beautiful, if commonplace, things we have in this stunning country.

We just came in from a lecture at the QUT in the city about Central Desert art, then we finished off with a walk across to South Bank where we had a delicious dinner at the Ship Inn. Brisbane was looking very attractive this evening with a full moon and a cooling breeze. It's a nice city.

Rene had visitors today from the Gibson Desert. These people are Aborigines from a community over 600 km from Uluru. After driving to The Rock, they flew to Sydney, then on to Brisbane. They're here at the Queensland Art Gallery as part of a new exhibition of indigenous art. They all came to the gallery around noon today to visit, have tea, and Rene also bought some of their art to sell here. They are all off to Melbourne on Friday. I was working so missed out on meeting them.

Three weeks until I have seven weeks vacation over Christmas. Our first Christmas party is at the Sunshine Coast, this Friday, after work. We are joining some 30 people from our old apartment complex for dinner and drinks and a terrific time I'm sure. We come back in the morning for Rene to open the gallery by 11 and then that evening we have guests for dinner. It's such a dull life (ha!).

We had a soiree last Friday afternoon for the staff at my various schools here at home. They drank bubbles, toured the exhibition downstairs and checked out our new home upstairs. It was very relaxing, fun and of course extremely social (I like that a lot).

Merle sitting in her new car in front of the Three Sisters, OR

The picture above is of my friend Merle from Portland Oregon. She rang me last week after President elect Obama was confirmed as the next US president. We had a marvellous conversation for an hour. Earlier, emails and calls were flying back and forth between myself and friends here and overseas excitedly talking about the election result. Brilliant acceptance speech, horrific time to take the reins of Office. I'm not going to dwell on the economy except to say we in Australia are better off than most nations to weather the storm, but I really don't have a handle on the whole situation other than to state that the anecdotal evidence I'm hearing about and reading about is very scary indeed.


Yesterday was the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day, and all across Australia we stopped at 11am to remember the fallen and those who fought in the war to end all wars, plus the many more since. I have no idea why, but all day I had this image in my head of Rene and I sitting in Comfort 1 on the Thalys train hurtling through the northern French and Belgian countryside at 340km/h sipping our wine and eating our meal in a deep and sumptuous armchair whilst the famous WW1 names flew past the enormous picture window. I remember being deep in thought for many minutes back there in 2004 reflecting on what had occurred in that beautiful countryside so long ago.


Well, it's done for now. I have to finish. There may be more added in the next day or two, but for now I leave you with a picture of some nuns in a bar sent to me this week by a friend. I'm sure they were checking the results from the Melbourne Cup held last week here in Australia. I, incidentally, for the grand outlay of $2 won $14 in a sweep at one of my schools. No, I didn't race out and do anything truly exciting with the winnings. Until next time...