Wednesday - Sunday, May 1 - 5 2013 (diary)

Time flies and yesterday (May 4) was my sister Wivica's birthday again.
When I visited here around this time of the year in 2008 the Black Forest looked like this : in the distance still snow on the Feldberg but sunny, although cool, everywhere else.
I did arrive towards the end of April then and it was snowing when I got out off the plane in Frankfurt.

Here around Darwin it is a totally different story of course. It is still somewhat humid, but the rains have gone and the sky is blue.
One of my daily delights is watching the wonderful cloud formations every day. The bright blue sky forms a magnificent backdrop for the clean white cloud shapes.I now can recognise and name most of the low level (< 2km or 6,500ft) cumulus clouds. I do find these by far the most attractive and interesting.
Here is a brief overview :

1. Cumulus humilis - clouds with cauliflower shaped upper outlines

2. Cumulus fractus - clouds with wispy fibrous outlines

3. Cumulus mediocris - clouds building up to as high as their width

4. Cumulus congestus - clouds building up higher than their width, forming towers

5. Stratocumulus - when cumulus congestus tops spread out over a wide area

Monday - Friday, May 6 - 10 2013 (diary)

I have had a heart burn problem (acidity) for as far back as I can remember, decades probably. Especially waking up in the middle of the night I had to reach for a couple of Rennies to relieve the acidity.
This past week I suddenly realised : "Hey, it is gone I think !"

There can only be one reason for that : drinking clean spring water. I virtually never drank water in the past, always soft drinks, beer, wine, mixed drinks, juices etc.
A month or so ago I started to change my habits and now predominantly drink spring water.
I tried a few brands but settled down on Mount Franklin lightly sparkling spring water (an Australian brand).
Some mineral waters (even good brands) just don't do it for me, but this Mount Franklin brand gives you a lovely "taste" (if you can call it that) of freshness in your mouth, which so far I have not found in anything else.
Mount Franklin has a few different types, some with a light taste of citrus or other fruit added, but I much prefer their plain, unadulterated (lightly sparkling) spring water.

To give it a bit of a kick I add the juice of half a lime to a 1.25 litre bottle. This makes it a great drink for me and I now consume a whole bottle a day.   Clearly it does not contain the acids present in all the stuff I was drinking before and both my stomach and I as a whole do feel much the better for it.
Our body consists for 90% of water anyway, so feeding it with a pure supply of it obviously can make a huge difference. It took me a long time to accept this simple fact and react to it, but at 76 years of age I have finally arrived.