One last visit to see the restored goat shed before I go. We head off from chilly Canberra, planning to watch the Olympic opening spectacular in the also chilly brick house. It is all the colder now that the end room has been stripped of its lining and is open to the rafters. Another problem […]

Only a few more weeks to go, then an adventure. What is more tempting: finding another contract in Canberra, and having money pour in for rather little effort, or vanishing overseas to study Spanish in Costa Rica? Someday maybe I will tell my story about the wastage in the public service, but not now. They […]

Another stint in the good ol’ public service. But my mind is elsewhere. On clathrates, to be quite precise. And I sure hope I am not the first one to mention this to you, because you’ll be hearing a lot more about them, and it is not good news. But there is some good news, […]

Spiral is a group set up 38 years ago in Canberra. A newcomer to town saw that many older people were isolated, and what started out simply as a casual gathering has become a weekly event. Volunteers, some of them in their 80s, pick up other elderly people and take them to a Uniting Church […]

A continuing saga of a coastal adventure. Or: how to convert a goat-shearing shed into a semi-sustainable habitable space. In any case, today is a good time to divert attention from the circus of the Olympic torch run in Canberra. Chinese have bused down overnight by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, all with Chinese flags handed […]

After years of yearning, I got to visit Paronella Park, near Innisfail, Queensland. It is a ruin of great beauty, with stories of dynastic collapse and perseverance. The motto for the new owners is ‘the dream continues’. And so does my dream on the NSW south coast. The renovations continue on the goat shed that […]

Sometimes press releases bizzarely turn-up in my inbox from the most interesting quarters, including this one from The Information Centre, an “independent NHS Special Health Authority that collects, analyses and distributes national statistics on health and social care”. I thought the Nanny State would be more serious than this, but apparently intervention comes with a […]

The ACT announced its long overdue climate change policy recently, and ACTEW AGL, the utility that provides gas, water and electricity to the territory’s 300,000 residents, has relaunched its Green Choice option. Two ticks for the good news, since both of these are positive initiatives that can only help in the global approach to addressing […]

I’m writing this post while waiting for Optus to answer a service call for our business phone. I’ve been waiting for close to an hour so far. It’s not as though I haven’t spoken to a human being. I have, but that was quite some time ago, and even though I’d rung the Optus number […]