Positive

Every cloud has a silver lining.

  Every hour of lockdown is a reprive for the environment when less activity means a reduction in carbon emissions. Fewer gratuitious long haul flights save fossil fuel. 

Unprecendented heatwave in the northern Americas is a warning to stave off global warming now.

Forget the Feds, the NSW state Gov has recently made enlightened statements about renewables, its unbelievable progress.

Excuse the spelling.

Napping

Caught napping could well apply to our city if large sporting events are planned when the pandemic is near. Origin is very welcome minus the crowds. Go the Blues!

Do you want Newcastle to continue to be free of virus?

Sabbath

Find the Penny Farthing. Our penny farthing rate of vaccination is snail paced. In denial about the long wait between shot 1 and 2 there has been an expectation that 2 will be ready sooner, that time will fly. Silly me.

 The cautiousness of the roll out is unbelievable and risk is prolonged. Sydney city and surrounds is in lockdown in response to increase of infection of very easily transmissable virus.

A lot of medical information is lately proved to be relative. A degree of  scepticism is validated. Common sense was usually dismissed, that is, in reference to fairly minor medical points.

Covid testing is available at local hospitals. The que of people not cars is probably outdoors. Is that the best on offer? In the cold weather. Outdoors is safer.

By the seaside

A superb looking day with board riders at Flat Rock and Whale watching activities.  Visibility was A1 and the hilly peakes at Port Stephens were particularly clear not that this photo reveals much of that.

Unusual boat seen leaving the port.

Hoegh Autolines - company from Norway, RoRo type, carrying for example cars, buses, trains, machinery. Bon voyage!

City Hall

City Hall is renewed. After several years work the exterior stone looks terrific and better than new. 

Officials presided at a reopening along with music some of which was presented by Broadmeadow school of Performing Arts.

Overall the event was very conventional even dull. Blame the pandemic.

 

Growth

A building boom is in city centre. A bonanza for estate agents. And stamp duty revenue.  

Nothing at all for battlers or the homeless in the midst of this well being. 

The virus is busy in Sydney. Here, we need abundance of caution. 

Best avoid getting emeshed with the situation and possible loss of freedoms. Visits to Sydney ruled out.

 

Social distancing, hand washing, testing of any sniffles, even mask wearing, QR use and all the rest. 

Testing is done in Callagen at the university and other sites that are not obvious. 

Commercial buildings, incidentally, have decks large enough to cover several families. .

Colourful

Will they won't they?  University of Newcastle in the city centre. The appointment of Chancellor has been reannounced and a problem has settled down. 

Restructuring of the university is underway and ex-workers commiserate about the old days. Again.

No doubt courses continue bigger and better and all that study can be found to be addictive when the brain functions a little better than usual.  

The new building is a bright addition even if a little intimidating. 

Live

Is the signage pre or post virus?  Is The Cambridge more alive by night? The lineup is Grinspoon, Regurgitator, Ratcat, Frenzae Rhomb, Cog, Killing Heidi, Custard, Caligula. Just the usual!

Wintery

Shades of grey sans shipping.

Certain wind and rain is a good change.

Virus thrives in winter, thrives no matter what.  A handful of infections have Sydney city in a scramble. Prevention is better than cure. Total relaxation is out.

 

Begin Again

Seeing eternity.  It is possible to wallow in a repeat of the melodramatic Death In Venice where Mahler takes you to see beauty and emotions and then even an epidemic. SBS library may have the film over free to air.

Or 

Begin Again by the artist Measure    

Wake up to sun   'cause morning does come,  if all you can rely on is the feel of your feet on the wood floor and if all you can depend on is all movement gives you some direction, then begin again.

You're no calendar   You're no concrete plan   Begin again don't waste your time waiting for someone to tell you when   Begin again. 

Wake up to sun ...........and begin again 'cause walking out doors only works when you shut them     Begin again and quit looking backwards  You know where you have been   You're no calendar....You're no concrete plan.....Begin again.....

                                                                                         

 

 

May flights of angels....

Memorial for a child.

In Braye street Mayfield.

Is theatre really alive?

Anita's Theatre Thirroul. An unusual space, there's a lot to it, partly a brave reproduction and done with some care. Between shows.

How will the pandemic be towards the end of the year? Should one take what could be the last and only chance for an unlikely interstate event? First world problem.. mortality

..risk.. indulgence..

Bluey

 Cattle dog or Blue heeler relative. Tut-tut the dog is not on a leash. It is the origin of the character Bluey on ABC TV.  

The dog that currently sits on the Tuckerbox five miles from Gundagai looks rather like a Blue heeler.

A Kelpie sheep dog just sold for a maxium 35k. It was trained and proved effective worker.

There has been 3 dog nights just lstely. 

Was Goofy a dog?

Dogs are a must-have accessory and of course the Rescue dog is right up there. A regular bitzer or mongrel dog is not so popular.

 My parents had an older dog a bit cranky and black all over and with a name that has become absolutely banned and rightly so. As well there was a sporty bitzer. This setting was  out of town. Hunting out rabbits with the dogs was a sometime childhood game.

Telstra

phone booths are near extinction

Mooney Mooney

Under Mooney Mooney Creek Bridge or the Big Dipper on the M1.  Concrete makes everything possible. Believe concrete impressed me in the study of really early Rome...

Some homes line the valley where the background noise from traffic is constant. 

Chev

Chevy Camero Z28 circa 1973. Muscle car T bar roof, a new old import. Vintage Ford Mustangs of circa 60s are up there and the driver heroes Geoghegan, Moffat, Bond etc along with totally different Mini Cooper S. 

Honda

  Honda CBX 1978 - 82, six cylinders in line 1047ccs

His torical round 40 years old and  looking new and glossy.

An aficionado described these Hondas. 

Ampol fuel has reappeared and  somehow Caltex fades away to get 

 another identity.

Free show

Kiama blowhole!

Some choice of subject on the coldest day since last winter.

One good turn...

Sick battery. Kick start. It seems a wide range of ways and means is employed to get the jab done in other places.

 We are too precious, who needs privacy and a jab operator with post graduate training? We enjoy abundance of caution but it puts the brakes on mass vaccinations. And we have no transparency about the available quantity of the sacred injectable.

 Even a fee for service applies! My Medicare site lists my doctor's fee, bulk billed by doctor, a 5 seconds jab given to each in a roomful of people over multiple sessions. Of course it can't be done free of charge but maybe an overall rate is suitable.

The Feds need to primarily finance the states and simply stop undertaking work they are not equipped to do nor should do, they often fail, they seriously complicate and fragment services, they try to justify their existence and double up on costs for everything they dabble with - education, health, social housing, gender wars and so on while totally ignoring leadership on indigenous matters and climate change.Their so called worth is all out of proportion.

 Johnson and Biden bring it on at G7 - we need a dressing down.

 

Obligatory photo

passive move  ..if that's possible.

Although in the grip of new strains,  contact tracing is busy in the south with 69 virus infections recorded.

We all know the rules about prevention. 

"Danger Moving trains" We know what they mean!

 

Towards winter

Fearless

Hear Beethoven Emperor concerto from Australian Chamber Orchestra and soloist for an up-tempo fearless  adventure, ABC Classic Radio offering.

Post-pandemic

Take care, vaccinate or else