Nice photo!

Nice photo of Clare, Jack and Luke here for lunch last Sunday!



Don't the kids grow up fast these days!!!

Countdown!

Well, it’s Sunday – and probably our last one (at least for a while) in England. Wow that sounds soooo weird and more than a little scary too!

So Shirley’s cooking a Sunday roast and Clare, John and the boys are coming over for the feast – plus I expect we’ll crack open a bottle or two of something.

It’s been (and still is) a rollercoaster few weeks what with making plans to pack up and head Downunder again – we’ve done it before of course but this time it’s different and it feels that way too and quite unsettling which I guess is not surprising. We’ve been avid travellers across the Globe for so long that getting on a plane to some far-away place has never really fazed us but THIS time……….!

We’re still in the Aussie Visa queue of course but hopefully we should be at the front of it in January when we’ll get ‘assessed’ – so we’ve our fingers crossed that they’ll actually have us!! But we decided some time ago to bite the bullet and make plans to leave the UK – so that will be Thursday and for who knows how long! We have Visitors Visas for a few months so we’ll play it by ear.

We’ve started the packing up process and my car is at the Docks ready to load into a container and get shipped. We’re hoping too that our house sale will get sorted out before we leave so its fingers, toes and eyes and everything else crossed that any remaining legal issues in the ‘sale chain’ get resolved quickly – watch this space!!

I actually packed my suitcase a week ago just so that I could see what I was taking with me – and more importantly what is going to get put into storage here until we’re ready to receive it, once (and if!) our Visas get approved hopefully in a few months time.

It’s an opportunity too for another clear out of all those things which you keep, thinking that maybe one day they’ll come in useful – but never do! And clothes not worn for months or even years – they don’t fit anyway although we think we’ll maybe get to lose a few pounds and we’ll squeeze into them again! I’m sure everyone has draws and cupboards full of such things, don’t they!! But it sure does concentrate the mind when you’re going to pack them up and ship them 10, 000 miles to the other side of the World in a somewhat warmer climate!!

We’ve a few challenges yet ahead of us this week – the glutton for punishment that I am, I undertook some time ago to organise a big Lodge meeting and event for Tuesday, two days before our departure and slap bang in the middle of moving out of here!!

So while Shirley and the removal guys will be here wrapping and packing, I’ll be getting into my suit and heading off for my last Lodge meeting!! I bet you can guess how that’s gone down at home, can’t you – yes m’lud, guilty as charged!!

But Shirley bless her is, as always, very supportive; I’m a lucky guy.

So it won’t be long now before I switch back to my Aussie Blog and although my Blogs here haven’t been as regular as I would have liked, I hope everyone has been following my ‘Tweets’ which I’ve linked in to the UK Blog. I’m going to redesign the Aussie Blog as soon as I get time with a similar Twitter link so again, watch this space.

Now, back to the packing!!!

Grit in yur eye!

Wow those dust storms in Australia last week were something, weren't they just!

The Lost Symbol?

You know something? Well if you know me, you’ll know that since 1989 I’ve been a Freemason – hmm that’s 20 years I guess!

But when I’m asked, I still find it hard to articulate what Freemasonry is all about – I know that I just enjoy it, the challenge, the ceremonies, the ‘fellowship’(now there’s a funny old-fashioned expression!) and seeing something I cherish practiced sometimes quite differently across the world from America to England and to Australia.

Just bear with me for a few minutes? Go here and read ‘What is Freemasonry’ if you want to discover what it’s really all about – you can read Dan Brown’s version in The Lost Symbol but personally, I prefer this definition.

Today I was struck by something I read – and I thought I’d just share it – it tries to define what a dilemma we all have when we try to describe something which means different things to different people.

Apparently there is a Buddhist parable used in teachings whereby six blind men each try to describe an elephant:

"Six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe."

It teaches the lesson that truth can be described in many different ways and yet still be truth.

I think you may be just a little wiser than when you started to read this, at least I hope so!

Lexophiles (Lovers of words)

This rather tickled me today!! (with thanks to Craig in Australia!)

1. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

2. A will is a dead give-away.

3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

4. A backward poet writes inverse.

5. In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your
Count that votes.

6. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

7. If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.

10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

11. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

12. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France which resulted in Linoleum
Blownapart.

13. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

14. Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.

15. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

16. A calendar's days are numbered.

17. A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.

18. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

19. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

20. A plateau is a high form of flattery.

21. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison: a small medium at
large.

22. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

23. When you've seen one shopping centre you've seen a mall.

24. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

25. When she saw her first strands of grey hair, she thought she'd dye.

26. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

27. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

28. Acupuncture: a jab well done.

29. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

30. The roundest knight at king Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.
He acquired his size from too much pi.

31. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned
out to be an optical Aleutian.

32. She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.

33. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it
was a weapon of math disruption.

34. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in
his work.

35. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

36. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

37. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

38. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are
looking into it.

39. Atheism is a non-prophet organisation.

40. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to
the other, 'You stay here, I'll go on a head.'

41. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

42. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab centre said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

43. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When
his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, 'No change yet.'

44. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a
seasoned veteran.

45. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

46. Don't join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects.

Sydney Dust Storm

Andrew & Sue woke up today (Wednesday) to Jessica saying 'Mummy, it's all red outside'!

I called and spoke to Sue as soon as we'd heard the BBC Breakfast news - the storm apparently came during the early hours of Wednesday and as you can imagine, caused absolute chaos although the kids still went to school ok but weren't allowed outside because of the choking dust.

Sue says its absolutely EVERYWHERE, this thin film of dust - and she can taste it too! YUK!

By the time I called it was 5.30pm Sydney time and the sky had cleared but Sue said it was unusually quite cold because the sun had been blotted out all day!!

Still, thankfully everyone seems to be safe........and well!

Weird huh?

.......PS

Um, we have flight reservations to Sydney with Etihad in November!

:-(

Oops!!

This brand spanking new Airbus 340-600 sits just outside its hangar in Toulouse without a single hour of airtime.

Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine run-ups prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area.

Then they took ALL FOUR engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an empty A340-600 really is.

The takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had All 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought they were trying to take off, but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc...)

Then one of the ADAT crew decided to pull the circuit breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to silence the alarm. This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air.

The computers automatically released all the brakes and set the aircraft rocketing forward. The ADAT crew had no idea that this is a safety feature so that pilots can't land with the brakes on.

Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting, so the $200 million brand-new Aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totalling it!

The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown due to the news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere.

Finally, the photos are starting to leak out …

A French Airbus …………………. $200 million dollars
Untrained Arab Flight Crew……… $300,000 Yearly Salary
Unread Operating Manual………... $300

AIRCRAFT MEETS RETAINING WALL

WALL WINS

Absolutely PRICELESS!

Twitter

Well, lets see if Twitter helps me to keep in touch any better than I've been doing recently!!

New element

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons,
88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 4 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganisation will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of
moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Asleep or what?

Um, I thought I maybe aught to say something!

No, I've not gone to sleep or even died!! (Well maybe lets not tempt providence, yet!)

It's just that it's been a little strange since we returned from Sydney a month or so ago - weird feeling, unsettled etc etc - just haven't got my brain into gear I guess.

But I WILL be back posting stuff - soon I hope.

Just be patient, please!

:-)

Ready to roll!

Well here we go again - all packed up and ready (almost) to roll!

A few last minute things still to attend to; disconnect the car battery, read the electricity meter and put those last few 'personal' bits and bobs away into what we now call the 'store room' aka what used to be the dining room!

Our bags are packed, labelled and ready to go - I've already checked-in online with BA so we have seat reservations and boarding cards; then it's the Fast Bag Drop at Heathrow and we're all set!

So au revoir everyone - we'll see you again in just a few months or so.

I'm signing off my UK Blog now and if you have time, inclination or just want to know what we're doing, just check in to my Aussie Blog - the link is to the right here.

Getting ready........

Well it’s chaos of course – slightly more so this year as we’re renting our apartment out while we’re away so all our ‘personal’ bits and pieces have to be securely stored!

And with only a couple of days to go we haven’t even started to pack our bags!!

It’s that time of the year when nature tells you that there’s somewhere warmer, somewhere else in the world! Here, the leaves are almost completely off the trees now after a quite spectacular autumn and now we have heavy rain and storms to blow the leaf every which way which makes for slippery driving conditions!

As the postman said to me this morning, today isn’t a day to be out and about!! One place I REALLY wouldn't want to be is at sea in the Vendee Globe Race which set off from France yesterday! But if you're interested you can follow the race here.

It’s dark in the mornings too and by late afternoon (often earlier) the light starts to fade and we’re into the cold, dark evenings we just love – TO ESCAPE from!!

Talking to Andrew on Saturday he says the weather in Sydney has been good recently – in the high 20’s – so we’re looking forward to getting some much needed sun on our skins!

Our flight is scheduled to depart from Heathrow soon after 9pm Thursday and all being well we should touch down at Sydney around 6am Saturday morning, local time which is currently +11 hours ahead of UK time.

Yes, it’s a tedious flight whichever way you look at it but with food and drink, a movie or three and a good book it’s surprising how quickly the time passes and then suddenly you peek through the aircraft window shutter and you’re looking down on the dawn sunrise breaking over the spectacular Red Centre - the awesome Australian Outback - and in no time at all you see the Sydney Harbour Bridge below!

Oops did I just get rather carried away with excitement?!

G’day mate!

Democracy at work – UK style!

I'm on a roll now!!

There aren’t too many ‘reasons to be cheerful’ in the UK at present but there is one glimmer of hope I’ve stumbled upon – it’s the Prime Minister’s website where you’ll find something quite special – it’s an online Petition facility; anyone can initiate one but it saves the old system of getting umpteen signatures on a sheet of paper and delivering this physically to No. 10. Remember those days?

I’ve actually subscribed to 2 or 3 petitions since I discovered it – the latest was in response to an ‘alleged’ attempt to increase the charge government make against the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) - which is a Registered Charity funded wholly through voluntary public donations – for their use of Maritime radio frequencies. The Petition actually said:

“As reported in the Sunday Telegraph on the 28th September 2008, Ofcom wants to bring “market forces” into the maritime and aviation communications. The RNLI will have to pay £250,000 a year, and “smaller search and rescue charities fear they may have to close”. This proposal must be rejected wholeheartedly.”

Now isn’t that scandalous?

Well, it seems that ‘government’ is listening and I’ve just had an email with the Government’s response which seems on the face of it to be promising – click on the embedded link to read what they say.

Somehow now I feel slightly more encouraged with the democratic process in the UK!

………..I’m not quite sure how long it will last!!

A day history was made!

Yes, ok – I guess I’ve been remiss lately; no regular Blog posting!

Well, feeling slightly guilty whenever someone says ‘why haven’t you kept your Blog going?’ I’m going to do my best to get back on track. It might not be every day of course but I’ll try to post something I think may be of interest to ‘my readers’ as well as things that amuse, arouse or even amaze me from time to time; topical stuff I guess you’d call it.

It’s also that time of the year again when we start to think about packing our bags and heading for warmer shores Downunder – its quite astounding really as it only just seems like yesterday that we flew back from Sydney although it was actually mid April.

I listened and watched Barack Obama’s victory speech on TV this morning and was struck how what he said and how he said it reminded me of John F Kennedy – I hope and pray that God in His wisdom allows President Obama truly to fulfil all the expectations which rest on his shoulders but I admit to being moved and excited by what happened yesterday.

For sure he faces an absolutely awesome number of BIG challenges but maybe like lots of folks I sense a change for the better. Watching those folks in Chicago mouthing his words ‘Yes, we can’ in unison was quite remarkable theatre, wasn’t it?

Every day, every event is history in some way but yesterday was one of those special days when maybe folks say ‘I was there, I remember what I was doing when the first black American President was elected’ – powerful stuff.

If only WE had inspirational and statesmanlike politicians!!

Look to this day

Look to this day, for it is the very life of life.

In its brief course lie all the realities

and truths of existence.

The joy of growth, the splendour of action,

the glory of power.

For yesterday is only a memory and

tomorrow is only a vision.

But today, well lived, makes every yesterday

a memory of happiness and

every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well therefore to this day.

Theatre Night!

We enjoyed a few days last week in the company of our good friends from Ludlow, Elaine and Sandy – they stayed over with us.

It’s always good to see them and although we only get together a couple of times a year, we always seem to just ‘click’ and pick up where we last left off! I guess we’ve been doing that for longer than any of us care to (or even can!) remember!

We decided to have an evening out at The Mill at Sonning; one of those dinner/theatre places not far away so it was a welcome change to set off and arrive there around 15 minutes or so later plus parking was very easy too!

Weird as it might seem, we’ve lived here off and on for about 30 years or so and we’ve never ever been to The Mill – and oh what a treat we’ve missed!!

The play was Plaza Suite, a comedy by Neil Simon about a room in the Plaza Hotel, New York – you might get the drift by clicking here.

Anyway it was a very good evening; the food was fairly plain but excellent and the show itself very, very funny – if you ever get the chance to see it anywhere, you really shouldn’t miss it!

So we had fun!

Oh I almost forgot; while they were here, Elaine asked me if I could fix a small website for her to advertise the B&B she runs from Ludlow – so hey presto if you click here, you’ll see what I did!

So if anyone is thinking of visiting Ludlow for one of their famous Festivals or just a look around, I recommend you stay at Elaine and Sandy’s place and I just know that you’ll be assured of a very warm welcome!!

(but hey, mind your waistline! Elaine's cooking is scrummy!)

Not for the faint-hearted!

Now here for your delight (!!) is (apparently!) a true story; its source was the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service in Adelaide.

A bloke and his family were on holiday in the United States and went to Mexico for a week. An avid cactus fan, the man bought a one-metre high, rare and expensive cactus there.

On arrival back home, Australian Customs said it must be quarantined for 3 months. He finally got his cactus home, planted it in his backyard and over time, it grew to about 2 metres.

One evening while watering his garden after a warm spring day, he gave the cactus a light spray. He was amazed to see the plant shiver all over. He gave it another spray and it shivered again.

He was puzzled so he rang the council, who put him on to the state gardens people. After a few transfers, he got the state's foremost cactus expert who asked him many questions. How tall is it? Has it flowered? Etc.

Finally he asked the most disturbing question. 'Is your family in the house?' The bloke answered yes. The cactus expert said get out of the house NOW! Get on to the front lawn strip and wait for me; I will be there in 20 minutes.

Fifteen minutes later, 2 fire trucks, 2 police cars and an ambulance came screaming around the corner.

A fireman got out and asked 'Are you the bloke with the cactus?'

‘I am’, he said.

A guy jumped out of the fire truck wearing what looked like a spacesuit, a breathing cylinder and mask, attached to what looked like a scuba backpack, with a large hose attached. He headed for the backyard and turned the flame-thrower on the cactus, spraying it up and down.

After a few minutes the flame-thrower man stopped, the cactus stood smoking and spitting, half the fence was burnt and parts of the gardens were well and truly scorched. Just then the cactus expert appeared and laid a calming hand on the bloke's shoulder.

'What the hell's going on?' the owner says.

'Let me show you' says the cactus man.

He went over to the cactus and picked away a crusty bit, the cactus was almost entirely hollow and filled with tiger-striped, bird-eating tarantula spiders, each about the size of two hand spans.

The story was that this type of spider lays eggs in this type of cactus and they hatch and live in it as they grow to full-size. When full-size, they release themselves. The cactus just explodes and about 150 dinner-plate-sized hairy spiders are flung from it, dispersing everywhere. They had been ready to pop. The aftermath was that the house and the adjoining houses had to be vacated and fumigated: police tape was put up outside the whole area and no one was allowed in for two weeks.

And here's what one of the cuties looks like sitting on a FULL-SIZE dinner plate...

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!

The Sands of Time

Second Life - Internet Lodge No. 9659 Embassy

Now here's something new - say hello to a slightly under-dressed Bro. Mercury Lefevre on a visit!

Confused huh?

.........watch this space!