Monday - Friday, April 1 - 5 2013 (diary)

A brief visit of a monsoonal trough over our region brought plenty of rain at the end of last month and during the Easter weekend. This allowed the total rainfall on our farm for March to increase to the respectful total of 363 mm (145").
But he monsoon has moved on westward and we are now experiencing lovely sunny days with blue skies and plenty of pretty cumulus clouds of various types. In fact it looks like the dry season approaching.

I still do my daily walks while listening to the news on the radio, now making four circuits around the farm property, first thing in the morning when the temperature is still only 25°C and very pleasant. (As the day progresses it usually rises to 33 or 36°C.)

I remember my aunt once saying (60 years ago) that my father, at heart, always remained a little boy. Perhaps in this regard I too am very much like him, as I delight in silly little things.
Throughout my life I have had a plague problem with my teeth. Some 15 years ago my periodontist cleaned it all thoroughly up and since then I have been visiting a hygienist every 6 months for a regular clean.

This past year I must have become a bit slack with my daily teeth brushing, for Leonie, my current hygienist in Darwin, was not too happy with them last week, and asked me to come in every 4 months (instead of 6) for my regular clean now.
So I decided to invest in an electric tooth brush, and I must say it does make a lot of difference. The small rotating circular brush clearly reaches into all the nooks and crannies my manual efforts never did much good and my teeth feel very smooth and clean every time after brushing.
It is also more fun using this gadget instead of a regular tooth brush and makes cleaning your teeth just a little bit less boring.

Saturday - Wednesday, April 6 - 10 2013 (diary)

The Dalai Lama will be coming to Darwin during the weekend of 22-23 June this year and he is also invited to pay a visit to Palmerston during that weekend.
Yet another sign that Palmerston is rapidly rising in stature. Indeed the city has major developments on its drawing board : a redevelopment of its city centre, probable relocation of its swimming pool to a more central position (next to the hugely popular Water slide) and the Durack Golf course will build a new community area with restaurants, a pool and recreation area overlooking one of its delightful lagoons. This on top of all the new housing projects that are going on around it.

A few months ago a leaked Discussion paper of the (Conservative) Federal Opposition party revealed thoughts of designating much of Northern Australia as a special development zone, an idea echoed by the world media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who (in Darwin only a week ago) urged the Government to facilitate strong development of Australia's inland regions above the Tropic of Capricorn. It has the potential (some say even the moral responsibility) to become the food bowl for Asia.

Darwin itself of course is rapidly developing into the major gateway to Asia and the rest of the world. Long term planning is anticipating a city of some 1 million inhabitants, an 8-fold increase from its present 130,000 strong population.   Most locals are not looking forward to that and neither am I, but at least some significant increase in population will be unavoidable, although that may take some time.
For the time being I am quite happy right here where I am and for me Darwin is by far the best place in Australia. But throughout my life I have had a very restless nature and I am starting to contemplate a move to somewhere else (North coastal Queensland perhaps) may be in 3-5 years time. I would love to own a motor home to give me maximum flexibility (I'm not fond of caravans), but a new one would be financially quite out of the question.