Thursday & Friday May 21 & 22, 2009 (diary)

Thursday I drive into Casuarina to get my new spare tyre fitted, lunch at Bar Zushi, then onto to the Nightcliff pool for my laps. I get there at around 2 PM and it is wonderfully quiet. The water too is still very pleasant. Doing my regular swimming again (I try to come here 2-3 times a week) plus daily Omega3 capsules and one mineral supplement tablet are doing me the world of good. No more muscle cramps or pains and I feel in very good shape all round. I can still feel my left upper arm I hurt last year, but it is now certainly 85% back to normal.
In the evening it is bridge in Palmerston again with Mairead. Last week, we hear now, we won with a whopping 73% score, it is very rare in bridge to score that high, most wins are in the high 50s or 60s. A bit of luck is of course always involved too.

Friday it is quite cool in the early hours and the morning too is nice and crisp, but warm enough to walk around in shorts and bare top only. It is just Paradise, as I have mentioned before.
The construction of Kim and Andrew's new Darwin Airport Gateway Motel is progressing slowly. It is schedule to open in about three weeks. Most of the carpets have been laid in the rooms and a container load of beds and mattresses arrived yesterday.

After my regular Friday seafood laksa in Palmerston I drive into town to help them with installing the beds. A lot of work needs to be done in the coming few weeks, but I quite enjoy giving them a hand, good exercise too, as I feel quite done in at the end of the afternoon.
Freda is still in Melbourne, so no bridge for me tonight. Just as well, I am quite happy to just rest and watch a bit of TV.

Saturday May 23, 2009 (diary)

Today is Irene van Amsterdam's 98th birthday. She sounds very excited as I phone her (feels like a 21 year old she tells me), has had numerous birthday cards, a huge birthday cake and visitors dropping in all day. Irene is still very sharp of mind and in her cosy flat right on the beach front in Brighton is most comfortable. She will easily make the 100 I believe.
Later in the morning I drive into town for a swim in Nightcliff, a sushi lunch in Casuarina and then onto the Darwin Bridge Club for the second half of a local championships tournament. This time Dev and I do much better than last week and will probably finish up well into the top half.

I am back home by 6 PM and enjoy a quiet evening watching TV. I phone Babette and Doug. There have been huge downpours of rain in SE Queensland and along the North coast of NSW (New South Wales), a few towns had to be evacuated because of flooding. Even the Bruce Highway between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast was cut (an unheard of event), so that Babette and Doug could not get down to work last Wednesday. Their home is high and dry of course.
The beaches are getting a pounding too. I hope Mooloolaba Beach will not be damaged too much by the surf, the narrow dune strip behind the beach is quite vulnerable to erosion. Farther out to sea waves up to 9 meters high have been reported. The good news is that all the water reservoirs are filling up nicely, as they have been at dangerously low levels these last few years.

Sunday May 24, 2009 (diary, politics)

The main topics discussed on the Insiders ABC TV program this morning is the Government's excessive use of "spin", refusing to speak truthfully to the public in plain honest language. I have been annoyed by this childish practice right from the start of Labour's election campaign with its glossy meaningless generalities, but since the present financial crisis it has reached absurd proportions. Thankfully an ever growing segment of the population now is starting to recognize for what it is : blatant manipulation of the media entirely for selfish political purposes.

The Government maintains that the "deficit", although stretching way into the distant futures, is only "temporary". The "recession" was also an unspeakable word for all Labour Ministers for a long time.
On Budget night the Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan not once (!!!) mentioned the actual size of the deficit (by far the largest in Australian history) in his speech to Parliament, an unprecedented omission. Only very reluctantly, and after repeated pressure from TV interviewers did Prime Minister Kevin Rudd utter the word "300", still refusing to add the word "billion" to pronounce the predicted true size of the deficit.
The mistrust of the present Government, long held by what the Insiders panel called "the elite", is spreading rapidly now.

Sunday is a good day to visit the Palmerston Library. It is open in the afternoon from 1-4 PM. So after lunch I go in and by chance happen to spot a recent book by Sebastian Faulks (famous for his book "Bird Song") titled Devil May Care, a James Bond novel Faulks wrote to celebrate the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth on 28 May 1908. So I take it home to see what it is like. Also a Microwave Cookbook.
On my way back home I buy some hamburger meat from Woolworth and later in the evening cook it. Works out fine, but I don't like the taste of the meat and throw the rest of it away. I will try the butcher in Nightcliff, who reputedly is the best in Darwin.

Monday May 25, 2009 (diary)

I have started writing "The Martinshof Story". It will include the segments I have written in this Blog so far and also tie all jewelry photos together in a separate Gallery. But I will continue with segments in this Blog itself too.
Therefore a very quiet day today spending most of it on the computer and having some fried eggs on toast for lunch.
In the evening a very pleasant night's bridge with Mairead Kelly at the Arafura Bridge Club with our usual bottle of red. Freda Park, my other regular bridge partner, has also just returned from Melbourne and we will have a game again together next Friday.

My bridge session with Dev Caple last Saturday was better then I had expected, we won the session with a respectable 62% score. But overall we only just managed to be in the top half due to our poor performance the week before. Never mind we are improving as a pair combination.