Mikeatmainbeach

This really won't mean anything to anyone outside of Australia and is connected to a blog I wrote a few days ago regarding Australia Day. I have just found out that back in 1915/17 Australia Day was celebrated on July 27. It was originally a cause to raise money for the war effort. There were various dates in different states of Australia for celebrations such as Foundation Day, Anniversary Day but it wasn't until 1935 that all states of Australia adopted a common date of January 26. In 1994 it was declared a public holiday. Someone made the decision to hold a national celebration on a day that marked the dispossession and oppression of indigenous peoples. Maybe not the best idea... The current date is so divisive, as I said previously, first nations people always refer to January 26 as invasion day, or the day they were robbed and always, every year, there are demonstrations. It never sits well with many and I'm certain it gives bad press to Australia around the world. The

I was listening to a radio talk last evening from the BBC world service. A good service by the way and always interesting. They were talking about women heads of state, Presidents..Prime Ministers  and why there are so few in the world. Also those that are elected in this part of the world anyway, here in Australia and "across the ditch" as we say in New Zealand, once elected they suffer more on-line abuse than their male counterparts. Sexist misogynist comments are just way over the top. I know when our first woman Prime Minister, the first and only female prime minister in Australian history...there were 26 elected males prior, she suffered some horrendous comments daily in the press and on the radio, social media etc., from the way she dressed.."oh I don't like that look...that makes her back side look large" etc., Also, the daily colour choices she wore..or her hair style. No man would have to put up with that. Well, it would never be said! As she was not ma

There are many illnesses, diseases we can unfortunately have in our lifetime. Many sad and debilitating but amongst one of the saddest has to be Parkinsons. A friend of ours has the illness and it is really like a living form of death or dying slowly maybe the unfortunate words to use.  It's not the shaking that we see as in someone like Michael J. Fox the most famous sufferer most are aware of it's the frozen limbs, unsteady walking, head tilted to one side almost touching the shoulder kind. Just about able to walk unsteadily with a walking stick and needing help a lot. Constantly on tablets and seeing specialists that really don't appear to be doing much at all. Botox injections to help straighten the neck; which really make no visible difference. Incontinence underwear often worn when out in case of accidents and progressively month to month becoming worse. He has a caring partner but even for him it must be, I know it is, a strain. Trying to get help seems a very faint

I guess by now many have seen the extremely sad and disturbing video of Tyre Nichols, the young man that was beaten to death by a group of police officers in Memphis, USA. To serve and protect, should be, but not in this case it seems. Wow...I just watched the start of it and that was enough. Just knowing that the young man in question would end up dead from a simple traffic stop is beyond words...beyond words. As I say I didn't watch anymore. He was beaten so badly and so violently he really stood no chance as he was calling out for his mother and yelling "I just want to go home!" Shouldn't happen.......and this for a traffic stop! His poor family just seeing that...his mother! A feeling of helplessness. How can a family ever get over that? How?! The police officers have lost their jobs, as they should of course, and justice will be served on them. I'm sure they will be marked men if they end up in prison, which seems to be the case.  Let's hope this doesn

At sunrise on this Australia Day the Sydney Opera House was spectacularly illuminated with an artwork by Rhonda Sampson an Aboriginal Kamilaroi woman.  Today is a celebration of all things good about living in Australia. We are so fortunate to be living in a country without wars as in so many other lands we sadly see almost daily on the news. So many nationalities live here we are truly a multi-cultural people in every sense of the word.  Today marks the 1788 landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove and raising of the Union Flag by Arthur Phillip following days of exploration of Port Jackson in New South Wales. Proclaiming British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia. It wasn't until 1935 that all states and territories adopted the term of Australia Day. From 1994 this date was officially a public holiday marked by awards of the Australia Day Honours list.  We know that if it wasn't the British that first colonised this land it would, of course, have been someone

 Is it just me...most likely it is..but when you get a video call on your phone for a chat do you ever feel sort of cornered? Is that the word? Maybe not er..almost held hostage...or unprepared could be a more appropriate word. I mean maybe text first so that I can actually BE prepared. Just give me a few minutes to at least look a bit tidy not just doing something else...nothing untoward that is 😳...but just have some sort of a warning! It's almost as if we don't have a choice if you know what I mean. I just like to be prepared and not caught off guard I guess and to look a bit presentable and not, as my mother would say, in the words of that famous poem by American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, appearing untidy and looking like something straight out of The Wreck of the Hesperas!  (I don't know if people truly understand the origin of that phrase when they say it. It's just something that's said and then forgotten. Taken from a sad and mournful tale and just treate

Super Yacht Named Plan B Mysterious, well it looks sort of mysterious, Super Yacht just arrived at the local Super Yacht Berth Marina here on the Gold Coast. Can accommodate 12 guests and 14 crew members. 161 ft  The owner is very private so I hear and it is registered in The Channel Islands. Helicopter plus assorted smaller boats on board. Looks amazing like something out of a James Bond Film. (There is a link below to an article I just found from The Sun U.S. dated July 2020 which gives more details. I have no idea of the correctness or otherwise just re-posting the link below. Makes very interesting reading) https://www.the-sun.com/news/1152831/ghilaine-maxwell-billionaire-ted-waitts-yacht-docks-california

We are going through something that must be quite unique to us here in Australia at the moment but due to this ever changing and unpredictable climate that we have had of late...well for the past few years actually thinking about it...we are going through, of all things, a potato shortage! Whereas once, when the pandemic was on, it was a shortage of toilet paper. Ask me why I have NO idea why toilet paper but there you are. Now it's potatoe's.... The wet weather where they are grown in the southern states...I'm in the northern state of Queensland..has caused delay in planting and harvesting hence the shortage. We can still buy them loosely at the green grocers but if you want to buy chips..fries..frozen that's another story. Fish and chip shops are becoming increasingly concerned and many are "chipping" themselves rather than purchasing catering bags of frozen chips which seem to be akin to gold dust at the moment or as rare as hens teeth as the saying goes. 

 Well it's  another beautiful 27c summers day here in Queensland, Australia and as I sit here in the shade, birds twittering in the surrounding trees, waves gently lapping in the distance, we learn that the Greenland ice sheet is melting at a dramatic rate...and well you know the rest! Oh Dear.... I don't know what I alone can do? I try my best and save energy when and where I can. Can't have solar panels because I live in an apartment building not a house. Drive only when I have to. Now with shortage of gas and prices rising so much around the world, only use what I have to and use the microwave more I guess; as long as fossil fuels aren't generating electricity..as most likely they are! It can be a depressing I know if we really sit and think about it. Past generations have worried about children growing up and we all do I guess thinking just what the future world will be like. Will they, the future generations, live as we do or will the climate be so different that e

Would you ever go up to someone and ask them to turn the volume down on their phone? 😬 I'm sorry but I wouldn't..couldn't! I would rather remove myself from the situation than do that. We were meeting a friend that used to live in our apartment building for coffee and sitting outside a really popular, attractive, little coffee shop we often go to seated under the shaded canopy of a magnificent colourful Poinciana tree. Tables dotted around and everyone chatting amongst themselves including us. It was peaceful, serene, until.... A couple arrived and sat just behind us and started talking on their phone.  I could hear it and it really didn't bother me at all. Maybe the volume was switched up I really have no idea but we could hear the person speaking on the other end. After a while the lady we were with actually got up, I wondered where she was going, walked over to them and asked if they could turn the volume down 😮 Heads turned...as they do! Aaaaagh!!!! Anyway.... the

My feathered friend of over thirty years has to have cropped up somewhere amongst my ramblings on here before but just in case anyone has missed it.... This is Merle an Australian Galah. Purchased from a pet store so many moons ago. Looking slightly worse for wear and missing feathers...oh and forgot to mention can't fly now and not walking so good either but when carried everywhere that's not really a problem. But all the same greatly loved...and very spoiled. She sits/sleeps on me or by my side never too far away. I think I worry more about Merle than I do about myself as going away can be a problem...is a problem!  Doesn't like to be in her house (don't like the word cage) only to sleep (so that I know where she is!)  and is out all day and every day. Also I'm really the only one that she allows to pick her up..  Sleeping on me when I do word search Or beside me every evening as I watch TV. In her very own kitchen drawer...yes her own drawer 😆... with scrunched

One thing about age...or as I remember Cher once saying to Oprah that I always remember "Getting older sucks!" 😏 and I do tend to agree... but in reality it just makes you, I find, not afraid to confront people but to "stick up for yourself" more and not worry 😟about the other person so much and what they may think.  I don't mean that in a nasty way but we often have so much fear and trepidation thinking we're not good enough, I know in my case anyway growing up, that was the case. Now it doesn't worry me. If I don't want to face someone I don't. My choice. Also not to feel the need to automatically check faces while in a crowded place for recognition or acknowledgement. Head high and onward 😐😉 Maybe it is a sign, at last, with growing older and being more confident, also more comfortable within my own skin. It's taken a long time I assure you... It takes a lifetime of knocks and sideway glances but if someone's not happy with me or w

Twitter is a minefield! All the different "tribes" take sides and take aim at the enemy of an opposing view. Guess they feel safer and happier when attacking in force. Feel they have group back-up to their claim. Where people can say anything...just anything and there is no check..no way of knowing if what is said is true or indeed warranted. It's just an amazing and often frightening free for all of really anything goes. This is a prime example of what I am talking about. Meghan Markles mother Doria has been photo-shopped to look like a drug dealer. Of course she is not. You can see the original photo and just how easy it is to manipulate..to change a photo. I took this off of twitter just today from one of the anti Meghan and Harry hate sites...and there are plenty believe me! Why do people do that. Guess they have too much time on their hands...or are just plain jealous 😏 It is so dangerous...so dangerous..and people believe what they see often without question. They

I was thinking last night, I truly hope there's not another pandemic like the one we have gone through for the last couple of years because with the amount of opposition there is building towards vaccinations, it's going to be extremely difficult persuading people to actually do it...to have the jab! Just talking to people last night...or being talked to...you wouldn't understand unless you were there..a long story.. but when I said I have had the two shots plus boosters...wow!  "How are you...you okay?" I was asked wide eyed. Then to hear about all the stories, supposedly from people who should know better I add...doctors no less, about the long term damage that's done to the body by having these vaccinations there will be a great reluctance for anyone to have it at all.  And it is growing I fear, the word, the opposition, is growing. No mention of the lives that have been saved...no mention...just the damage we are doing to ourselves. It's a fine line fo

 I wish there was an alternative to palm sugar and palm oil. Palm oil is in so much of what we consume I doubt if the clock can ever be re-wound as it were. From chocolate to shampoo cosmetics and almost everything in between from breakfast cereal, potato chips to pet food. I absolutely cringe when a cook on a TV cooking show says to add palm sugar. We know...or should know how much damage we are doing to add to the deforestation of the worlds tropical rainforests How many animals we are putting in danger through losing their homes...their lives.                    Land cleared that was one home to animals..birds..insects of the world that we need  The environmental disaster by the palm oil industry is becoming increasingly impossible for anyone with a conscience to ignore. Tropical rainforests are being wiped out for the palm industry at an alarming rate and have done for years now.  Palm trees planted where once was tropical rainforests as far as the eye can see where no animals can

 Something different to my usual ramblings 😊 A beautiful very early morning sunrise at the beach across from where I live. Just love these palm trees! (not the ones grown for the palm sugar and palm oil industry as in my next blog 😡) I will post more photos mixed in with future blogs...

It's good to see Harry giving his side...his truth...as they say! I am totally on his side. What with the dreadful journalists and the made up so called "news" stories that are put out by many in the media it is just disgusting in my opinion. The same media that hunted his mother Diana eventually to her death are now trying to do the same to Harry and his family. The media has so much to answer for and in the end it all comes down to the number of hits they get on their internet page to increase the traffic and the end product to sell advertising or selling trashy magazines with made up "news" about "so called" celebrities. As someone said on Twitter today if Harry and Meghan cured cancer the media would be after them ...and not in a good way.  I find it all quite sad and annoying that anyone can say really anything and not be answerable to anyone. Harry mentioned Jeremy Clarkson in his TV interview. I have to admit I haven't yet seen it, the inter

It's a thought I have had for a while now.  People have long memories, and it will be interesting indeed to see how the current situation plays out. The current situation of course being the latest and well publicised confrontation between Prince Harry and William, wives Meghan and Kate and with Camilla in the mix anything is possible. Somehow smooth sailing is not on the horizon anytime soon and choppy seas will continue to plague the royal family. I bet the P R team at Kensington Palace are working overtime to try to rectify the situation. If they can that is! The toxic British press aren't helping things either by seeming to stir things up. Just how the coronation of King Charles lll alongside his Consort Camilla will go will be interesting. Charles wants the full extravagance he says after all he has been waiting a very long time for his moment in the sun and I doubt if he will let it go quietly without all due pomp and circumstance. Will Harry be invited with his wife Megh

😦 Have you ever left home and forgotten your phone? I did this morning and it's a very strange feeling. To be alone and disconnected from the world. How did we manage without them before?  I have no idea... What if something were to happen and I need someone? What if someone needs me...urgently? Panic starts to set in  😟 What should I do...go back and get it or be brave and try not to think about it! I was brave 😐 With a growing feeling of isolation and disconnect from the world.....alone...sitting there with my coffee before attacking the grocery shopping I look around for any newspapers to read. No luck there... So with nothing to do but try not to be obvious as I look around at other people..smile at the lady with her cute little dog.  No Twitter to check..no mail to check..no Instagram...no news... nothing... I take out my wallet and re-arrange cards. Medical together...bank cards together...various coffee cards together...but still no phone and I vow to never to NEVER do it

One thing I have noticed on Twitter lately is that there are some commentators posting that have more than one account. Why? I am not a great contributor to Twitter unless there's something that really annoys me that someone says and then it's all on. I like to contribute my two cents worth as they say but lately, especially with the Harry and Meghan on line hate explosion, I have noticed comments so similar from different accounts under different heading names. It just seems so obvious and when I have queried it there is often silence or I'm blocked. I have read...and I am in no way saying this is true just what I have read within the Twitterverse as I have no way of knowing...that Kensington Palace have their own PR team to "try" to "tidy" any bad news concerning the royal family. It would be interesting if some of those "same" accounts could maybe be traced. I have no way of knowing if that's possible....who knows indeed! I guess anythin

 Hi again, As I'm sure I must have mentioned previously, sometime or the other, I live on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. A truly beautiful part of the world where tourists, or as we prefer to call them visitors, like to come for holidays from other parts of Australia and the world. I live just a walk away from SeaWorld. This has no connection to the American SeaWorld but purely Australian owned. I say this because the " other one" seems..and I have no idea just why... but seems to have had some bad press over the years. SeaWorld here I know does a great deal for conservation and they are the only ones here that go out and rescue whales when they get caught in the dreaded shark nets off our beaches while on their migratory yearly swim from the southern Antarctic waters to the tropical breeding waters just to the north.  The reason I mention SeaWorld is that two days ago there was a very sad accident. I understand this has been shared around the world in and on di

Are you caught up in the Harry and Meghan controversy? I greatly admire Harry for stepping away from "The Firm" as it is referred to The Royal Family. As he has stated by his soon to be released book he was always looked upon as 'The Spare' as in the books title. An Heir and a spare...as they say! William the heir and Harry the spare. A spare.... just in case!  I enjoyed the series on Netflix. I know many will disagree but I truly feel Harry is better off out of it with his wife and new family to forge a life of his own away from the continual toxic hounding of the British press and its relentless, constant, pursuit of news and gossip. Much, it is said, is passed on from within Kensington Palace to feed the hordes and keep "The Firm" in the right light as it were. And in my opinion and the opinion of others I know to paint Meghan, Harrys wife, as the villain. The one causing all the trouble and disruption. It took a toll on Princess Diana's life in what

 A New Year ahead and I wish Good Health, Happiness and maybe most of all...no of course MOST OF ALL..Peace in the world. Peace to our World.  A big ask I know. We can try to do our best with our health..the best we can that is and guess we create our own happiness, mostly, but as for peace in the world! Has there ever been true peace in the world? Yesterday was my Birthday...a new year baby..1st January...I know..I know..I was such a cute baby :) A lie I know...surely! I used to look forward to birthdays filled with excitement and often good things but maybe it's a sign of getting older and the way the world is I am often now more filled with apprehension and concern at just what a new year may bring. There are so many "flash points"..(and on going viruses)  around the world as they are well and truly publicised on and in the news constantly...daily. That can affect our happiness for sure! I wish egos of the powerful become less war like and threatening and we can all li