The week that was

 

Little Rover kept squinting his left eye so we took him to the vet who found an ulcer in the squinting eye and a cataract in the other. Nothing much can be done about the cataract but the ulcer required an injection and ongoing treatment with ointment and drops and a return visit to the vet next week and the week after and the week after that. No wonder my old mate Noel never kept a dog; he could barely look after himself let alone a dog (perhaps for the same reason he also never married but that's another story ☺).

The Valuer-General increased Riverbend's unimproved value to $695,000 which is all very flattering were it not for the fact that the money-grabbing Council will use it to also increase its rates.

Back in 2006 when it looked like we had a buyer for Riverbend, I flew to Cairns and visited Kuranda in the rainforest up in the mountains to look for a new home. One properties I inspected was at 46 Cadagi Drive, Kuranda. It was built in 1986 for around a million dollars and sold in 1993 for half a million to the then current owners who wanted to sell it again for $850,000. They eventually did sell it in December 2006 for $800,000. It's for sale again at $1.2million. Looking at it now, I wonder what possessed me as its sheer size would've enslaved me with all the cleaning and maintenance.

MV TENACITY has been anchored off Riverbend all weekend. Its skipper, Ross Britt, told me that he had at one time considered buying Riverbend. He must still like it. Why else anchor here when he has fifty kilometres of navigable river to choose from? Anyway, he's the kind of neighbour I like: here today, gone tomorrow.

As has this week: gone in a flash and leaving barely a ripple.

 

There has to be another angle to it

 

It looks easy on YouTube but after I had wasted half a length of cornice cutting the wrong angles, I called in the experts, Stewart's Interior Linings. Greg Stewart sent one of his men, young Brett, who had the whole thing done in an hour.

He then headed off to the Snowies for a spot of deer-hunting. I gave him a bottle of Jägermeister to show my appreciation for a job well done and to keep him warm in the mountains.

 

I am 69 and I am (re-)tired

I am 69. I've worked hard since I was 14. I put in long working hours, and never - and I mean NEVER, except for one urgent appendectomy at Christmas 1973 ☺ - called in sick. I made a reasonable salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am.

I am tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I am tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I am tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?

I am tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I am tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

I am tired and fed up with seeing young men and women in their teens and early 20's bedeck themselves in tattoos and face studs, thereby making themselves unemployable and claiming money from the Government.

Yes, I'm bloody tired. But I'm also glad I am 69. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. Thank God I'm on the way out and not on the way in.

Bunnings gets my goat

 

During countless visits to Bunnings I spent well over $7,000 on new kitchen cabinets, a new kitchen sink, and assorted fittings. I always dealt with the same short-of-stature-and-short-of-temper lady behind the 'Special Orders' desk whom I rang yesterday to order the final touch, the stone benchtops.

"That'll be $3,058.19. You have to pay for it before we can process the order", she said

"Can I pay by cheque instead of credit card?", I asked.

"No problem!", she replied.

So my wife drove into the Bay to deliver the cheque and was back within the hour - WITH THE CHEQUE! The same lady, with whom I had dealt face-to-face more than a dozen times, had refused to accept it! She insisted that I give it to her in person and identify myself with my driver's license! Has the world gone mad?

Which is not what I asked when I rang her. Instead, I asked, conciliatorily if not beggingly, whether I could give her my driver's license details over the phone.

"No, you must come here in person!", she replied, before lecturing (or should that be 'hectoring'?) me that this procedure was for my own protection.

The only protection I need is from pompous and officious Bunnings staff!

BUNNINGS - pompous and officious staff are just the beginning ...

 

Memories of Bougainville

Canadian Chris in his snowbound home

 

Many years ago - how many? is it ten years already? - , I received this email in response to my Bougainville website:

 

Hello, Just stumbled upon your site. Name is Chris Jefferies and I lived and worked at Loloho assembling the drying plant. Lived at Camp 1 for a short while, but for the most part Loloho. Worked there from 1969 to Jan. '72 when I got the hell out to save my neck! Canadian and worked for MKF and Johns and Waygood. I don't have many more photos for the reason that the "Pella" who was running the mail truck from Kieta, at that time, thought it was really fun to toss the mail out the window and watch it flutter away like the little birds, so a lot of us lost a considerable amount of correspondence and, of course, my return photos. Nothing surprising about that behavior, but doesn't help old memory lane. When I left Bougainville, I went to then Burma to work for Toshiba on a hydro project and there I was most definitely not permitted to even have a camera, (Viet Nam time.), so only memories there too. I would not trade my time in those places for anything; especially Bougainville, the Islands and Papua. Don't know that I would go back, given the opportunity, hard to say, and the likelihood of having that opportunity is little to none, so no point in conjecture. I don't know if this info is of any use to you, but there it is. Contact me if you have anything that you think that may interest me. Chris. P.S. As an aside, I see that they are talking of re-opening. Are they going to throw us a party to show us their appreciation for the good job we did of putting it together? I'm still wearing a damned hard hat and still busting my butt. What the hell have I done wrong?

 

Chris and I were on Bougainville at the same time and in the same camps. Maybe we even lived in adjoining dongas? His donga certainly looked very similar to mine, right down to the picture on the wall ☺

Even though we never met on Bougainville - and more's the pity - , ever since that first email we have had a regular (and regularly entertaining) email exchange during which we also tried to find an answer to his last question. "What the hell have I done wrong?" It may have been rhetorical to him but to me it's a daily thought.