Another glorious day, sunny, quiet and peaceful, and the only neighbour in sight is a houseboat at anchor on the other side of the river. They waved; I waved; a distant voice; then silence again. Very Longfellow-ish.
Time to catch up on what I hadn't finished yesterday - doing nothing!
But only if they draw the right ticket number on Wednesday, the 12th October 2016.
I'm no sucker for raffles or lotteries; I don't even touch the pokies. However, someone send me an invite to the RSL Art Union Draw 339 and I found the view too hard to resist.
So here are my tickets:
Keep the day open just in case! ☺
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you're surrounded by lots of wooden offcuts, every one of them looks like another bench.
And so I've started on two more bitsa-benches made from bits o' this and bits o' that, to replace the sawn-off sleeper-logs around the fireplace.
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Flamme empor, Flamme empor. Steige mit loderndem Scheine auf die Gebirge vom Rheine glühend empor, glühend empor. |
I'm no user of public conveniences, mainly because I don't have to as I seldom leave "Riverbend", but also because I don't want to. However, on today's trip to Ulladulla the 'I don't want to' became an urgent 'I have to' and I used one.
Nothing out of the ordinary except for the huge padlock on the rolls of toilet paper which, in this country of abundant wealth, I would hardly have thought worth stealing but who knows what goes on behind closed doors: when opportunity knocks, people knock things off.
After this roadside education, I went for even more when I chose the books at my favourite bookshop Vinnies: George Soros' The Age of Fallibility - The Consequences of the War on Terror and Buffet - The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein plus The (MIS)BEHAVIOUR OF MARKETS - A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward by Benoit B. Mandelbrot and Richard L. Hudson. And, for some light relief (the second time today), A.C. Grayling's The Challenge of Things - Thinking Through Troubled Times and E. Annie Proulx's Postcards (she of The Shipping News fame).
Enough reading material to spend some quiet time on the recently built benches.
Ich wanderte im Jahre 1965 vom (k)alten Deutschland nach Australien aus. In Erinnerung an das alte Sprichwort "Gott hüte mich vor Sturm und Wind und Deutschen die im Ausland sind" wurde ich in 1971 im Dschungel von Neu-Guinea australischer Staatsbürger. Das kostete mich nur einen Umlaut und das zweite n im Nachnamen - von -mann auf -man.
Australien gab mir eine zweite Sprache und eine zweite Chance und es war auch der Anfang und das Ende: nach fünfzig Arbeiten in fünfzehn Ländern - "Die ganze Welt mein Arbeitsfeld" - lebe ich jetzt im Ruhestand in Australien an der schönen Südküste von Neusüdwales.
Ich verbringe meine Tage mit dem Lesen von Büchern, segle mein Boot den Fluss hinunter, beschäftige mich mit Holzarbeit, oder mache Pläne für eine neue Reise. Falls Du mir schreiben willst, sende mir eine Email an riverbendnelligen [AT] mail.com, und ich schreibe zurück.
Falls Du anrufen möchtest, meine Nummer ist XLIV LXXVIII X LXXXI.
For a translation, click here.
This blog is written in the version of English that is standard here. So recognise is spelled recognise and not recognize etc. I recognise that some North American readers may find this upsetting, and while I sympathise with them, I sympathise even more with my countrymen who taught me how to spell. However, as an apology, here are a bunch of Zs for you to put where needed.
He reserves the right to revise his views at any time. He might even indulge in the freedom of contradicting himself. He has done so in the past and will most certainly do so in the future. He is not persuading you or anyone else to believe anything that is reported on or linked to from this site, but encourages you to use all available resources to form your own opinions about important things that affect all our lives and to express them in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everything on this website, including any material that third parties may consider to be their copyright, has been used on the basis of “fair dealing” for the purposes of research and study, and criticism and review. Any party who feels that their copyright has been infringed should contact me with details of the copyright material and proof of their ownership and I will remove it.
And finally, don't bother trying to read between the lines. There are no lines - only snapshots, most out of focus.