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todayiamadaisyLiveJournal sent out that ten year challenge notice last week, reminding me that ten years ago I was (wait for it) complaining about the heat. So... not much has changed. Today's paper reminded me I had good cause to be complaining about the heat ten years ago, this being the tenth anniversary of the Black Saturday bushfires, the most fatal fires in Australian history. Ten years. Kevin Rudd was still Prime Minister then, so that's five Prime Ministers ago. And now I'm second on the list at the library for a book about them.
The fires were much further north and east than the City by the Sea, but a local couple — actually a woman my mother used to work with — had family in that area and lost their son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. Kevin Rudd made a secret visit to the City by the Sea to meet them in private afterwards. My mother's friend described him as really lovely, which is not something you often hear about Kevin, so good for him.
Late last year, I read an interview with an executive from Amazon, wondering why Australians hadn't taken up their Black Friday sales in the sort of numbers they expected. Well, one, we don't celebrate American Thanksgiving, so Black Friday sales have no historical meaning for us; and two, days labelled as Black tend to signify to us that something terrible happened occurred on it. Disaster, not bargains. I mean, learn your local market, dude.
This week I watched an episode of Grand Designs New Zealand while I was making dinner. The couple was attempting to recreate some historic 1800s homestead the wife had admired as a child. Well, that's what the wife was doing. Her husband was just going along with it. Anyway, they recreated this house and filled it with period furniture and did it all well under budget. And it was nice. Not to my taste, but it looked exactly like the house they were copying and it was what they wanted, so good on them, right? No. Not at all. The host asked them if they were happy with it, and the husband was, but the wife... not so much. What's the problem?, asked the host. She was unhappy with the local building restrictions that meant her ceilings weren't as high as the ones in the original house, and the left wing of the house had to be several metres shorter, and she wasn't allowed to use the heritage-listed wood that the original was built out of. So they had bought another block of land and were going to build the same design all over again. That's when I added her to my mental list of "irritating people on Grand Designs whose houses I hope fall down". And they live in New Zealand, so that actually might happen next time there's an earthquake.
This weekend I have been struck with some sort of minor bug. A sniffly nose and heavy eyes that just won't stay open. Not sick exactly but aware that's something's not quite right, and I can't remember what it's like not to feel like this. I feel like I'm going to be mildly peaky forever.
The fires were much further north and east than the City by the Sea, but a local couple — actually a woman my mother used to work with — had family in that area and lost their son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. Kevin Rudd made a secret visit to the City by the Sea to meet them in private afterwards. My mother's friend described him as really lovely, which is not something you often hear about Kevin, so good for him.
Late last year, I read an interview with an executive from Amazon, wondering why Australians hadn't taken up their Black Friday sales in the sort of numbers they expected. Well, one, we don't celebrate American Thanksgiving, so Black Friday sales have no historical meaning for us; and two, days labelled as Black tend to signify to us that something terrible happened occurred on it. Disaster, not bargains. I mean, learn your local market, dude.
This week I watched an episode of Grand Designs New Zealand while I was making dinner. The couple was attempting to recreate some historic 1800s homestead the wife had admired as a child. Well, that's what the wife was doing. Her husband was just going along with it. Anyway, they recreated this house and filled it with period furniture and did it all well under budget. And it was nice. Not to my taste, but it looked exactly like the house they were copying and it was what they wanted, so good on them, right? No. Not at all. The host asked them if they were happy with it, and the husband was, but the wife... not so much. What's the problem?, asked the host. She was unhappy with the local building restrictions that meant her ceilings weren't as high as the ones in the original house, and the left wing of the house had to be several metres shorter, and she wasn't allowed to use the heritage-listed wood that the original was built out of. So they had bought another block of land and were going to build the same design all over again. That's when I added her to my mental list of "irritating people on Grand Designs whose houses I hope fall down". And they live in New Zealand, so that actually might happen next time there's an earthquake.
This weekend I have been struck with some sort of minor bug. A sniffly nose and heavy eyes that just won't stay open. Not sick exactly but aware that's something's not quite right, and I can't remember what it's like not to feel like this. I feel like I'm going to be mildly peaky forever.