IN MEMORY OF THE LOVE AND WISDOM OF THREE SPECIAL CATS
1. Our dear cat, Rosie, died July 28th, 2011.
She loved her daily yogurt, a place in the sun and Peter's lap. Nineteen years of memories.
2. Our constant neighbour, Toby, from across the street, died July 2011. A charismatic boy and sadly missed-aged 19 years.
3. Phoebe, our lovely grey girl, inherited from Mum, died January 21st, 2002-aged 20 years.
At left is Oli, our handsome ginger boy, pictured in 1981. He died in early 1993.
Click on Maneki Neko to find out more about this ubiquitous Asian cat, so popular in Japan and, perhaps, the inspiration for the cute Hello Kitty products.
We enjoyed the parrots attracted by our almond tree. Pink and grey galahs sometimes attacked like a
marauding army and dropped a hail of twigs and nuts onto the tin roof of the shed. You'd hear the noise from inside and come running. Sometimes there were sulphur
crested cockatoos and, rarely, huge black parrots swaying on top. Sadly for the birds, our gum tree died first in the drought and then the almond tree, killed
partly by a pepper tree I had let grow, thinking it would be a good replacement until I saw that one of the base roots was 20 cms in diameter
after only 5 years. 
The pepper tree and dead almond were removed April, 2017.
In Spring, 2011, we were charmed by the arrival of a piping shrike/Murray magpie which we named Cheepy. He walked around our feet collecting crumbs when we ate outside and engaged in various bizarre acts like flying repeatedly into the laundry window under the verandah and pecking at it and jumping up and down onto a wheelbarrow of flowers I had on the lawn while pecking the plastic tray. He had several sounds-a loud "cheep cheep" when he arrived and some lovely whistling too. Pippi, the cat, was always watching and waiting but had had some bad experiences with birds. At right: Cheepy, identified by the white S swirl behind the eye, the patch of white over the beak and the slightly scruffy appearance.
Family pages: a work that will continue to be in progress for a long time.
Australian stamps from Australia Post.
Christmas
in Australia;
Christmas World
Nigella's recipes; Recipes: Australia's best; Recipe goldmine-frostings; Delicious recipe index; Taste; Good Food; All recipes; Joy of baking
Paper dolls on Pinterest;
Adult paper dolls amazing;
royal; Stardoll;
Images
of paper dolls;
Historical paper dolls.
As a child I used to draw my own dolls based on dolls from Archie comics. I drew and coloured hundreds of
outfits for them using pictures from the "Australian Woman's Weekly" and other magazines for ideas. Sadly, I threw them out when we moved
from the country to the city.
At left: beautiful carnival glass picture taken from Dusty Old Thing Facebook page.
THE NEWER CATS ON THE BLOCK-BAXTER AND PIPPI
Black and white Pippi born 2002, died June 24, 2021 aged 19 years and 9 months. She was a quiet and home loving girl for most of her
life and almost never meowed until she found her voice in her last 2 or 3 years. Ginger Baxter born September 1, 2012, is a much fiercer cat, sometimes loving, but prone to
flying tackles when you cross his lawn. He also bites, sometimes fiercely. When he arrived he tried hard to make friends with Pippi, but she rejected him completely.
They settled into a truce in later years, although there were still often hissy fits between them. In 2026 Baxter will be 14 and is slowing down and
becoming more loveable-older cats are often at their best.
We have an unrenovated house and old cars but have spent money on travel because we find it interesting and educational. It also helps us appreciate what we are lucky enough to have at home. We were travelling long before the internet started, and I've always written diaries but now I put them on the internet because it makes it easy for us to see them and perhaps others may be interested or be able to use the information in their own travel planning.
Holiday 2008; Holiday 2010; Holiday 2012; Holiday 2013; Holiday 2015; Holiday 2016; Holiday 2017 ; Holiday 2018; Holiday 2019
TEACHING INTERESTS FROM MY TEACHING PAGE
Below are some letters from "The Australian" newspaper in August 2022, including one by me (very edited) speaking on education from the viewpoint of long term classroom secondary teachers. Bob Barden was a much admired colleague at Eyre High School in Whyalla, and caretaker of the family pianola while we were overseas.
The letter by me (18-8-2022) is second but what I wrote is in red and black and the red is what was removed. I can understand why, as it seems very ordinary and unglamorous, but, actually, it was a major cause of change in how we taught.
GRAMMAR
Some simple grammar links: Verbs;
pronouns;
prepositions; conjunctions;
modalities never heard of them when learning
grammar at primary school, but interesting
Apostrophes require grade 1 level understanding of singulars and plurals! Apostrophes by me.
Apostrophe song on You Tube;
Photos: Larkspur in my garden; Salt Lake at Lochiel, SA
USEFUL TEACHING RESOURCES
Colin Welch's Educational resources on Lexiconic Net;
Puzzlemaker by Discovery Education.
School project photos; animals;
Education.com; hassle free clip art;
All posters; Illuminated letters;
Art Deco architecture site.
WW1 postcards; Trenches on the web;
USA 1935-1945: Library of Congress photo database.
List of genres; Refdesk:
books and literature; Books: you can read online.
ADVERTISING
This is a subject that has always fascinated me. I think its enormous power has been under-rated, even though the effect is
much reduced as so much is online now, but it is still there, bubbling away.
SA's Old Mate Ad;
Modern Ads;
Duncan's TV Adverts;
Links to many American historical ad databases;
Ad Access: a database of US
and Canadian print ads from 1911 to 1955.
Hidden persuaders blog.
CREATIVE WRITING
Creative Writing Ideas - my own page developed over a number of years. The ideas seem worth preserving.
COMICS
Sadly comics and comic strips are almost obsolete with the closing down of newspapers as everything moves online to computers/phones.
Such a sad loss, as the storytelling, characterisation, examination of the human condition, satire and fun use of language were a great study.
Wikipedia about comic strips;
Syndicated comic strips and panels;
The history of comics in America;
About com history of comics;
Comiclopedia;
Top Cartoon Sites;
Danish Comics;
Classics Illustrated of childhood memory.
Romance comics;
List of romance comics;
Romance Origins;
Romance Comic Blog.
Comics Down Under Blog;
Australian Pulp Fiction;
Carter Brown
GOVERNMENT: LOCAL, STATE and FEDERAL
Find your local council and locate it on the map.
State Electoral Commission.
Find your state electoral district using your address;
Parliament: in South Australia;
House of Assembly Members of Parliament;
and Legislative Council Members in South Australia;
State animal and
floral emblems and
Ausflag.
Find your federal electorate from the Australian Electoral Commission-type in your suburb or postcode;
Members of Federal Parliament.
AUSTRALIAN HISTORY
Captain Cook's voyages,
Sir Joseph Banks: his papers in the State Library of NSW;
Endeavour Voyage Maps;
IN THE NEWS
ICT award for using websites to investigate students' place in government. A terrific ICT coordinator encouraged innovation.
One of the first school email exchanges I did was with New Philadelphia Welty Middle School in 1994. I still have the recipe book.
Here is an article which appeared in MacNews in 1994 when we were using Nexus at Unley High.
Use Simon's Javascript unit converter below, to change Imperial to Metric measurements when cooking.
Simply type the quantity in the spaces provided and click on the CONVERT button underneath.
| ounces: | ---> grams | |
| grams: | ---> ounces | |
| pounds: | ---> kgs | |
| kgs: | ---> pounds | |
| pints: | ---> mls | |
| mls: | ---> pints | |
| degrees F: | ---> degrees C | |
| degrees C: | ---> degrees F |