This is an early-morning picture of the Batemans Bay Water Gardens. It was just me and the birds while I waited for the car to be serviced.
An hour later I was slugged $300 for a simple 100,000-km routine service. Why? Because the service included something as major as replacing the rubber on the windscreen wipers. In days gone by, I could have bought two strips of rubber for a couple of dollars and replaced them myself. Not anymore! These days they completely replace two perfectly good windscreen wiper arms at a cost of$66. I'm glad I could do my bit to push up this month's GDP number.
To offset this extravaganza, I went shopping at my favourite op-shop and came away with The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul, All the Wrong Places - Adrift in the Politics of Asia by James Fenton, and Colin Thuborn's In Siberia. Enough to keep the grey matter occupied for another week.
And, of course, we went to see Last Cab to Darwin at the Bay City Cinemas, even though it meant spending two hours of a gloriously warm and sunny day in the dark.
All the news seems to be about same-sex marriage. If that's the only problem we have, we're the lucky country indeed! The pollies want to run a multi-million-dollar referendum or plebiscite (take your pick!) to let the plebs decide. May I suggest we add the question of how much money pollies should be allowed to claim in entitlements?
Penny Wong is caught out sleeping with a bloke. What hypocrisy!
While on the news, it was also reported that it costs us $2,000 a day to hold an illegal migrant in an offshore detention centre. $2,000 per person per day!!!! I've just checked the Sydney Hilton's website: their deluxe rooms go for around $300 a night. Why not save a whole pile of money by putting them all in the Sydney Hilton?
