The Ambassador of Indonesia; the Lord Mayor; other officials and wives attended the Indonesian Independence Day Dinner and entertainment. Impromptu, the Ambassador sang old 'tops of the pop' numbers on stage and played guitar.
Traditional food was served and alcohol was conspicuous by its absence, at the same time, in other respects, this was not a crowd of wowsers. Indonesia is a northern neighbour. Extraordinary how a European power arrived there once and 'took over' a country of such antiquity. They brought missionary activity and built churches. Nowdays, the 'boot is on the other foot' when the Europeans get worried about newcomers to their country.
Fascinating to watch what citizens take exception to. Unsavoury celebs and the gospel from Oprah or Dr Phil are given the thumbs up. Fears arise from selective changes in our society.    

Indonesian Independence Day Dinner, Indonesian Australian Community (Newcastle & Hunter Region) Inc.
Local children were enjoying the evening and were getting in touch with their heritage.

In Tamworth, Quart Pot Lane beside Longyard Hotel with its log fires and Goonoo Goonoo Room that echoes with country music crowds, beer and beef eating.
Goonoo Goonoo!  used to be pronounced: Gunny Ger Noo
Quart Pot - to 'boil the billy' and brew strong black sweet billy tea. Pre-metric!
Longyard: Is this self explainatory? Is not in the Macquarie dictionary.

Tamworth with Imperial Hotel, the road to Gunnedah and Quirindi, and The Northern Daily Leader (newspaper - probably long taken over by a very big company).

My persistent weight: 83.5kg (+1kg)

This 'post card' is from Tamworth, several hundred clicks north-north-west of Newcastle, in the heart of country and western music and the hugh associated annual festival late January.
From at least fifty years ago, the yodelling hill billy, soloist, plus acustic guitar, recorded on a scratchy 78 filled the air waves of station 2TM, Tamworth.
The music has developed into a vast diverse and popular class (of which I know very little).  ABC radio (and on the WWW) specialises in the music on Saturday nights round midnight and currently features the Gympie Muster. The Gympie (Queensland ) Muster is another must-see event on the country music calendar.
At least one academic from Oklahoma has been researching the music and was spending another couple of weeks of his summer busy in the archives in wintry Tamworth.  Distincitve characteristics are found in the Australian music he said.

The next post card, pre-New York, arrived yesterday and took 22 days from the city with the 'eye' factor.  

Time warp at the Guggenheim. A Post card arrived and took about a week to reach here by air mail. Travel hype in the Sunday paper told of an Australian presence in the shopping aisles in New York. How could you possibly waste your time shopping? The city must be full of other wonders.

My gross weight: 82.5kg (+.5kg) 

A lot of the rice in our supermarket comes from Pakistan. Enjoy - not.

3D Larger than life - that's not today's Federal election. Fickle voters. After years of one political party is it possible we risk going back again after such a short period and one that had unique challenge from the

financial crash. 

I doubt citizens really worry about a deficit unless it is endlessly 'talked up'. We grew used to a virtual deficit  with the previous government's cut backs.

It is ease to see how a deficit can be used to justify boring, frugal times (aimed at some) it was bad enough before the crash when the budget was very flush. Prosperity rose from cutting back on essentials.     

     

Little sparrow: active, busy, gets around, no nonsence, persistent and sleeps at night.

Is it fast food or country and western music that is the attraction? Elusive Sparrows have been sighted at SUBWAY in Tamworth. Occasional sightings are made in Newcastle.

Subway serves crunchy fresh salads that can't be all bad.  Their salad dressings and sauces probably need limiting as does salt and cordials.

Harbourside living. The dark deep sea is just metres away.

By the way, the very-big-internet giant reminds us to-day how little we know about the internet. Such companies have access to our photo files and I wonder, to the whole content of our computers. Are you a risk taker?

My gross weight: 82kg (-2kg)

Harbourside with baroque lighting

His story, 1978 Honda CBX 1000, restored, air cooled, 24 valved OHC, transverse six, Honda delving into racing bikes, yes in 1978.
2) Smaller 1968, CB 350, twin 4 stroke OHC, close model to that hype in zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. 

Imperial Russian Ballet.....Russia....revolution....Climate Change protest Sunday......










Political policies on climate change are weak and little Ranga is not at the forefront of revolution

A sudden change in climate scattered the protestors.

My gross weight: 84kg (+1.75kg)

  

Tourists find employment in the 'provinces'.  Kim chi, pickled onions and rice cookers were getting a work-out before a 5am start. As I understand, time spent in unskilled work etc in certain towns leads to an extension of a tourist visa and assists local enterprise which may be short of workers.

Out in the provinces, was seen Tamworth Co-operative Ltd as a fading sign from last century, where lots of people shopped for their food, produce and goodness knows what, and they held shares in the business.
When the retail 'giants' open up in the suburbs of country towns then the city centre changes. Is that what they really wanted to happen?  
South of Tamworth and in the ranges evidence of recent rain was easy to see.  The grass was very green.

My gross weight: 82.25kg (-1.75kg)

Trees

After a flight over this exotic landscape with ancient landforms the destination in Sydney included a cafe under ....a FIG tree!
Some like to live dangerously and this was a favourite haunt of mums and babies during a walk in the park.
What does a rusted-on labor voter who is a chauvinist do in the forthcoming election?
How is it that a University department, with a 99.5% enrolment of women, has about 1.75 academic staff who are women?

I am a car adick too. Gas guzzling cars and jet flights are non-stop. Who will change and conserve energy?
Moves to help change from old to new cars achieve very little environmentally - more manufacturing , more cars instead of public transport. As a stimulus it could be directed elsewhere.
Truancy policy - come off it - surely the Feds can do better than that and deal with our real big issues and start that revolution transformation for a sustainable society.

The traffic crawls out of Sydney, everyone is homeward bound, round the last right turn, onto the F3, the open road and a surge towards Newcastle.   
Down down down-hill to emerge into the vista from the Hawkesbury River bridge.
A painting by 'B' set beside a digital image.

My gross weight: 84kg ( +1kg)

A railway line went through here behind the houses past Saint Andrews and Civic Park across Hunter street to the harbour front.  Small timber skips carried coal that was mined from out beyond the Junction area. There was also evidence of a rail line in the cliff south of Merewether Baths.

Take a seat

My gross weight: 82.5kg

 Newcastle was lashed by gales but little Ranga was on the new look election campaign today in Newcastle with photo opportunites: 1 Simply blown away by the view from Braye park.

2 sharing our local dilemma over the fate of our old fig trees.

 3.Gratified by a nation building project at Newcastle Grammar School, The Junction.

 Reflection of the real Julia Gillard, Prime Minister, leaving ABC studios, Newcastle and a handfull of protestors.

This afternoon, when it wasn't raining, the sunlight highlighted a 'ranga phenomenon!  A house is rebuilt using bright laminated lumber joists that come in 'ranga tones.
A disused (arn't they all) corner shop is altered to add to the housing stock. Demolitions are a source of hard-to-get timber in odd sizes suitable to fix any repair problems in our house.

My gross weight: 82 kg (-1kg)

Pilot heading to a new arrival at the port. A chopper is another option.
Birubi, in the scan, had nice lines and was the pilot ship some time ago and was moored off a central point. It was a 427-ton steamer built at Newcastle in 1927.

My gross weight: 83 kg