2017 Year of the Rooster (very soon!)

Well I slept through the stupendous Sydney fireworks and had a good eight hours sleep to herald in a healthy new year.  My first move was a coffee at Ruby's and and then the installation of a bird feeder and bird bath at my cabin entrance. It will be nice to hear the chirp of some happy birds throughout the day.

More deaths in custody don't sound good and reform is well overdue in this field.

As Damien Murphy says, Turnbull must get active and DO something if he is to survive the year as PM.

More paedophile abuse evident as this young man divulges his horrific past.

Ruby's is very busy on day one of 2017

The editorial says it all about the changes that must happen for Indigenous Australia to become the healthy place it should be.

The obsession with Sydney views is fast becoming a real money-earner, for some that is!

Now to make final preparations for my Thursday flight to Brisbane for the big ECK seminar where I have to have a small speech prepared. I am really looking forward to starting this year of the Rooster on a great note.

NYE...but where to next?

Sydney does it the best is the official opinion, but how many times can you continue to wonder at the most expensive show of fireworks over arguably the most beautiful harbour in the world?

Last year's effort -  will this year's be better, that is the question!

A picture of what I could have been, had I been a baby-boomer! I am not.

The truth about the surge of the too young departures among the biggest stars, and biggest drug users.

Australia's shame at the treatment of our refugees 

Ian Thorpe finally Out and Proud, with his boyfriend, good on them!

But poor Jamie hides, still in the closet, while Mariah reaps a few extra million dollars.

I watched this exciting game of cricket yesterday and felt sure the Aussie team would win, and they did. Big congratulation to them.

Today after a leisurely breakfast with Di at home, (she took me to a delightful small Japanese dinner last night at the local Umiya, somewhere to which I will return) I had a nice coffee at Ruby's, and will celebrate the final day of 2016 at the East Gosford Art Gallery which I hear has an excellent exhibition, and then home for  a quiet night in front of the now working tellie.

 Tonight will be quiet reflection on what has for many been a catastrophic year, but for me an excellent year of change, with next year, the Chinese Year of the Rooster, my sign, planning to be a whiz-banger!

Di's return visit

Yesterday was so hot at 38 degrees that I did absolutely nothing. And then I find that today is to be the same, and Di is arriving on her return road trip to Melbourne, so it will be another experience to savour. Perhaps she'll come for a swim with me at seven pm.

Lunch on Wedensday with Paula was good at Cafe Jam in East Gosford with my friend Margo still in action there, although the chorizo was a bit too much for me. Her son Dylan has taken the mantle and become a chef too, and the other son Marnie, is doing a film school course. It was much the same as when I arrived there eighteen years ago, nothing seems to change in Gosford. A visit to Paula's home later at Lisarow resulted in the gift of a perfect sun umbrella for my back hot space, and also an unexpected catch up with friends Colin and Ian at their beautiful deer farm also at Lisarow. They were in good form and it was as I had only seen them last week not ten years ago! Memories afternoon teas in their paradise came rushing back and I now could chat at length with Kwi Ian who left  New Zealand forty-five years ago with no regrets. 

More steamy weather...

Big cocaine bust, where does it all end up I wonder? The cocaine I mean.

A great favourite of mine as a young boy, and still rocking at eighty, Goodbye. Debbie!

François Fillon may well be the next President of France.

Last night at Ocean Beach at sunset, beautiful.

One of Ruby's regulars who has breakfast everyday here, and she cuts a stylish figure as well, reminding me of my dear departed Mum.

This is the 'Amazon' Jamie Packer was planning to wed before his unscheduled China collapse... is she for real, or just one of the trophies Packer wanted to keep for a year or two for his reputation to stay intact as a red blooded male? What a great red herring that was, and Mariah even looks like one and is now several million dollars the richer, not that she needs it!

Shirley Hazzard led a wonderful ex-pat life all over the world, but especially on Capri where she befriended Graham Greene  and wrote about him in her Memoir. She died this month at eighty-five. She had a great education and an early opportunity to excel with a travelling diplomat father where she met some fascinating people in China and the US, marrying one of them, famous biographer Francis Steegmuller. 

Lunch with Paula

Today I am finally meeting Paula at Black Sesame to carch up with The Laramie Project happenings. Will be interesting.

Also an interesting article by Amy Remeikis about why her dad voted for Pauline Hanson and it's very like the Trump factor in the US.  Disillusionment with the status quo and finding no other alternative but someone who was also disillusioned, although not very bright. That's many of the GP I'm afraid.

Is she worth it? I don't think so.

Awful toll from non swimmers....

George Michael was generous but also plagued in his sexuality...sad.

The problem with Aussie sunshine...beware!

Back to Ruby's

It's the Sydney- Hobart race and all over the papers, such an adventure for just a small percentage of sailors, millionaires most, but still the most exciting yacht race in the world.

The favourite is retired....

Too many drownings in the hot weather...

George Michael loved hard, sang hard and died young.

A seal on a car, only in Tassie!

Lots to do still with a heat wave predicted this week.  Di is coming on Friday now having changed her plans again, but then I expected that. I haven't decided if I will stay at home and watch the fireworks on tele or go out somewhere. We'll wait and see.

Oh, forgot to say I saw new movie 'La La Land' with Ryan Gosling and was quite disappointed. The director didn't have the style or talent to pull off what could have been a return to the great American musical. Didn't work for me at all..

Christmas cheer, and terror...

Last night Cherel and I saw a great movie  called 'United Kingdom' on at the Paradiso. Based on the true history of the African Republic of Botswana it told the vivid and gripping story of its last King and the revolution he began when falling in love and marrying a humble English girl while he was studying at Oxford. His country, in league with its colonial oppressors Great Britain, reacted badly and he was exiled for many years until with the help of some sympathetic English politicians he overturned his exile and rendered Botswana an independent democratic nation after discovering it had diamond mines as its inherent wealth.  Beautifully acted, and filmed in stupendous Africa, it was a perfect start to the festive season with Cherel offering me a lovely laksa at her beautiful home after the show.

However Christmas was a fearful thing for some in Melbourne this year with the biggest escape from planned terrorism yet in this very large and vulnerable country. Three venues were targetted with the great St Paul's Cathedral being one of them. Where is the world heading when a Christmas season starts like this?

More religious fanatics this time Lebanese extremists giving that great country a tainted reputation..

Aussie hero Hugh Jackman in Bondi saving the locals from a shark attack...in his dreams !

These were the targets..

But today, Christmas Day,  I am at Wyong Race Course where the Samaritans have regularly organised a lunch for those with nowhere to go. I am participating as a guest cum volunteer and the atmosphere is already a beauiful one with a marvellous singer of Maori birth, who is singing his heart out which he does every year I am told.

The volunteers settling in...

Offering a coffee which is very welcome...

The necessary selfie....

The music and spectacular singing of 'I Still call Australia Home'. Although he has been living here forty-five years Lambeth Bennett is his name and he is originally from Hawkes Bay NZ. Last night he sang at The Entrance festivities in front of ten thousand people and he donates every Christmas to the homeless here at Wyong Race Course. His voice is like golden syrup mixed with cream, very similar to that unequalled voice of 'the King' - Elvis.  People like Lambeth and the Samaritan volunteers make me feel that Christmas is as it should be and as it was originally intended, as a time to look after those who have less than ourselves.

Day before Christmas Eve

It's Friday, Christmas on Sunday, and I finally get my e-cards sent about a week too late I think as no-one will read their emails in the next few days! But at least they are sent from my i-mac which is now functioning OK and I even downloaded some photos. I know I need to spend some more time  cleaning it up and getting it to work with wifi  instead of wire-connected as it is at present.

I'll be interested to see if I get any replies to my e-cards which of course, are English northern hemisphere to the hilt.

Tammy the barista with flowers in her hair at Ruby's....

Trump looking decidedly dishevelled with his over-long red tie, what a sartorial disaster!

Getting ready for a Samaritans Christmas....

Clovelly, a beautiful beach where I lived for a year as a student....now a $30 million hotel!

The dirt of ex PM Abbott is amazing....

But the serenity of this wonderful animal makes up for everything...

PK's first visit

A new walk route this morning with Cherel and friend Penny along the Woy Woy waterfront. It showed just what a pro-active local council can do with people who just get things done. This is a beautiful  walk, user-friendly and just what the place needed for people to enjoy the waterfront who can't afford to live right on it.

With Penny posing under the tree where Cherel conducts her Sunday free Qi Gong classes.

The friendly ducks who frequent the Woy Woy Bay area.

Pictures of Sydney's gangster population...thriving!

Will the Phillipines President get his come-uppance? I wonder.

On to Ruby's with good friend Peter who made his very first visit to see my little cabin and he loved it as well, which I thought he would. We then had a coffee after which he went on for a look at the local shops as he seems to love this part of the Central Coast much more than Gosford. It has a certain atmosphere which Gosford certainly lacks and also much better equipped with good cafes.

Cooking day

Hot again today but am now ready to start baking for my Christmas contribution. Ginger and choc chip cookies to give to some selected friends.

Coffee at Ruby's is always good and the news pretty terrible, but that's what you get if you read the papers. Below is an example of the sublime and the sad, the tragic and the ridiculous. That's life in the lower worlds I'm afraid. I will soon be flying to Brisbane to get a taste of the higher worlds and I am so much looking forward to this trip.

Last night sunset at Ocean Beach after a sublime swim.

Local politics is so discouraging this long planned airport will be a nightmare I know.

What goes on with powerful men...unedifying to say the least.

What goes on in State policing....always corrupt.

The madness of Isis and hate religions...murder and mayhem.

More tragedies in Europe, in Berlin this time....

Trump has made it into the White House....OMG!

This is the local paper's front page, a hair-cut and a report of the awful road toll....?!