Happy Birthday, young brother!

Several years ago - well, about 54 - my brother, Grant, was photographed looking pretty cute.
From the looks of this I'd say he was approx. one-year old (I would have been about 11). He was definitely a photogenic baby. That smile really grabs you. (Original monotone photo colourised in October 2011).


(Scanned 35mm slide; Nikon EM )
Fast-forward twenty years to his 21st. birthday (circa 1976 - I can't remember the year but the date is 27th. May) and the cute face has lost some of its cuteness, that's for sure - and it's certainly more hairy! He is also posing looking artistically-serious.


(Olympus 1300 digital)
Now fast-forward another 20+ years - to 2004, to be exact - and that face could be straight out of Hemingway's "The Old Man And The Sea". But notice that the smile hasn't changed in 55 years.

Happy Birthday, young brother. May there be many more.

A weekend in the Southern Highlands

(Click on the images for full-size versions)

Last weekend we meandered our way through some of the most beautiful countryside in New South Wales - the rolling hills and forested escarpment that makes up the Southern Highlands, with their quaint and idyllic towns and villages.
Mittagong, Moss Vale and Bowral are probably the names that come to mind - Bowral in particular because of the Bradman connection. Others include Robertson, Fitzroy Falls and Kangaroo Valley, Berrima and Bundanoon.
This is really a delightful area in which to spend a "lost weekend".

Not too far out of Robertson, on the way to the Jamberoo Valley, is a relatively-new tourist attraction called "Illawarra Fly".
(Rather than my trying to describe it fully, and probably failing to do it justice, just click on the link in the name).
This has been in operation for less than a year, provides a spectacular and unique view of the coastal plain and is worth a visit.
Below are some shots that I took during our adventure.


This view looks north and the southern outskirts of Wollongong may be seen in the distance.

The photo was taken from this..........


Many, many metres above the forest floor and literally walking through the tree-tops.
There was a strong wind blowing above us but on the walk itself it was relatively calm and peaceful - just a (gulp!) gentle swaying!

Not for the faint-hearted is this observation tower - the viewing platform of which is another umpteen metres higher than the walkway and is accessed by a spiral staircase.


I opted out of climbing this thing; I'd be no good on an old four-masted clipper ship and would be clapped in irons pretty quickly for telling the First Mate what to do with his top-gallant!

In addition to the touring we also had much time for eating & drinking, the highlight being the "Tweed & Tartan"-themed dinner on Saturday night.
Several of our gathering decided to become "Jimmies" for the evening.....


(L to R Tony Argyle, Peter Daley, Geoff Nickols, Peter Dalton, Peter Lewis)

The weekend was capped off on the Sunday with a visit to the Bradman Museum at Bowral, followed by luncheon (cricketers always refer to is as "luncheon") in the pavilion, pictured below from the oval.


A delightful weekend spent in an area in which I could live very happily......once I win the lottery!

Airport security gates; what a shambles!

Last Friday I flew from Canberra to Sydney. It's been a while since I've flown but I was familiar with the more stringent requirements of security checks prior to boarding one's aircraft.

The walk-through at Canberra terminal was fine.
I removed my glasses and 'phone, placed them in the little blue tray and walked through the arch without any problem.

The experience that afternoon at Sydney terminal for the return trip was a horror story.
Again, I placed my mobile 'phone and glasses in the tray and walked through the archway.
"SQUE-E-E-AL"!

I backed up and grabbed another tray (the first one had disappeared into the "black hole") and placed my watch & wallet in it and also removed my shoes and placed them in the same tray.
"SQUE-E-E-AL"!

My two travelling colleagues were watching this from the "we passed okay" side of the barrier and behind me I had a rapidly-growing queue of passengers waiting to go through the same process.

I removed my belt and my small change...which amounted to about four dollars...and placed this lot on top of my jacket (I thought I should take it off too, just in case) in yet another blue tray and then asked one of the guards if he thinks I should strip down to my underwear. No reaction; he just stood there with a dull, bovine look on his face. He certainly found the right job to fit his outgoing personality.

This time I walked through without the alarm sounding and then attempted to find three blue trays which contained all my worldly possessions.
In my haste to get dressed and put away all my bits 'n' pieces, I picked up the tray that contained my belt and jacket, with the coins sitting on top, swung around to place it on an empty bit of bench-top and scattered coins the length and breadth of the entire lobby area.

They were still there when, swearing and cursing (and not under my breath, either), I left this three-ring circus and headed for the boarding gate.

I can only put this fiasco down to the fact that the metal detector in the archway in Sydney was set at a much higher sensitivity level than its cousin in Canberra.

The next time, I'm wearing shorts, T-shirt and thongs and carrying nothing!

Time passes too quickly

Taken in 1986. Drew was three and Lauren was six years old and we were having a holiday in a house near a beach at Bateman's Bay.
The kids had just finished lunch when I sat them down on the front porch and snapped what has become my favourite photo of them when they were young. The smiley faces are heart-warming.

Lauren is now a mother and her children - my grandchildren - are the same ages as the two shown above.
Matilda is nearly three and William is six.

Time really does fly past.

".....пять, четыре, три, два, одно, воспламенения"

The heading translates as the last six seconds in the countdown for a rocket launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome, USSR.
What on earth (or in space) does that have to do with anything? I hear you ask.

Well, I was a child of the space-age.
When the USSR launched Sputnik in 1957, I was just on 11 years old and from that moment I followed the space-race so keenly that I would lay awake at night in my boarding-school bed listening (on a small transistor radio with ear-piece) to The Voice Of America short-wave broadcasts of every US space launch.
The Russians weren't as forth-coming; they would only publicly announce after the event (and then only if it was successful) but the excitement I felt wasn't any less.

On 12th. April 1961 the first man went into space: Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth.
This was science-fiction come to life and it didn't matter that the hero was Russian - it was the event itself that was awesome.

Anyway - getting to the point - I recently discovered that the type of watch that Gagarin wore into space was available on the internet and, after doing some research, I happened upon the example shown here.

The watch-band and the dial are reproductions - modern replacements for what must have been very tired 50-year old originals - but the movement, case, crystal and back-plate are exactly as issued in 1961.

It was a hand-wound Shturmanskie (often spelt without the 'h') with central seconds complication and a hacking feature that allowed the watch to be precisely stopped and synchronised with a given time signal.

The Shturmanskie that Gagarin wore into space had a highly finished (including Geneva striping!) 17 jewel, shock protected movement. The movement was housed in a chrome plated, two-piece case measuring 33 mm across, 12 mm high, with a 16 mm lug size and had a stainless steel screw back.

A little item of nostalgia with which to commemorate the 48th. anniversary of the event and something which I will enjoy wearing occasionally.

Once Upon a Time....

I was wandering through an old family photo album recently and in amongst the collection was this one of my youngest sister, Venette. She was 2 or 3 years old and appearing in her first concert.
The venue would have been the Kendall School of Arts, the centre of culture for the Camden Haven valley in the 1950's.

Down through the years this photograph has become known in the family as "The Reluctant Fairy". It's about time it was shared with a wider audience.

It's his eyes!

We were having a barbecue and I noticed that my son's dark-glasses perfectly reflected a plate of sausages.......

Note the hat; it used to be mine!

I demand your attention!

There are times when we all have to pause whatever task in which we may be involved, for many different reasons. One reason might be that one's office assistant is demanding one's attention and, until given, he or she will not budge from their position.

Such was the case when I was doing some work at home and my assistant decided that it was time for a meal-break........

(Photo taken with Nokia mobile telephone held out to side in right hand)
This staring contest lasted for about twenty seconds before I caved in.
After all - who wants to explain to their boss that the work couldn't be completed because a cat was sitting on it?

Collectible retro-toys

Two weeks ago we visited Braidwood - a small, heritage-listed, town between Canberra and the coast. It has some interesting shops which sell a wide range of items, from antiques, to oil lamps, to 1950's clothing.

One of the shops happens to be an outlet for reproduction 1950's clock-work, Japanese, tin-plate toys. These days the toys are made in China and are produced for a limited world-market - they aren't the type of thing that you would always find in your local "Toys-R-Us".

I happened to pick up two of these, the first being a robotic figure named "Chief Robot."
When the chief is wound up and placed on a flat surface he moves ahead and then turns to the right, repeating this action until the mechanism winds down. This is accompanied by sparks shooting about behind the little window in his mid-section. No doubt these sparks are produced by a flint-and-wheel arrangement similar to a cigarette lighter.
Underneath is a protruding cam-operated lever which operates on a cyclic basis, pushing against the table surface and lifting the left-hand wheel off the table, thus causing the robot to turn right and then continue its march.

The other character I bought is called the "Happy Wanderer" and this item is made for only two distributors - one in Spain and the other here in Australia.

This is a real delight.
When wound up the duck-like figure pedals his tricycle in a large arc, with his articulated legs flying up and down on the pedals and the three-bladed propeller on his hat whirling around in a blur.
Very colourful when operating.

I was interested to learn - and be shown - that originals of such toys bring vast sums at auctions, a nice copy of the Wanderer realising over AUS$2000 when sold last year in the USA.

At least mine are affordable and, because of that, I can demonstrate them when the grand-children visit without having to do so behind armoured glass!

Easter, 1972. The "Dirty Weekend"

(Scanned from a 35mm slide; camera Olympus Trip)
Exactly thirty-seven years ago - one year before we were married - my girlfriend and I decided to spend Easter fishing for trout at the base of Tantangara Dam, in the Snowy Mountains of NSW. This is where the Murrumbidgee River rises and starts its journey to the Murray-Darling system.

So we packed the little 1965 VW Beetle with the hired 2-man tent, sleeping bags, fishing gear and supplies and, on a windy and cold Good Friday we departed Toongabbie, in Sydney's western suburbs, and headed off down the Hume Highway into what was to be an abbreviated "dirty weekend" (all our friends reckoned that's why we were going away, as the GF was living with her parents).


(Scanned from a 35mm slide; camera Olympus Trip)
It was the coldest Easter for many, many years.
Not only did we have a howling gale to contend with but also sleet. It was snowing at a slightly higher altitude than where we were situated.
Although it was a very picturesque location, the natural beauty was completely unappreciated by both of us as we froze our backsides off. I even had to create a makeshift wind-break by stringing a tarp between two trees in an effort to reduce the wind-strength at base camp to something less than cyclonic!

We stayed one night (Friday) and, as it was so cold, we slept in our clothes, each in his/her own sleeping bag and kept awake by the snuffling of wombats as they ate the bread that we left outside the tent..


(Scanned from 35mm slide; camera Olympus Trip)
On the Saturday afternoon, with no improvement in the weather, we packed up and headed off to Old Adaminaby, arriving at the camping site in near darkness.
I had great trouble getting the tent pegs into the ground and it wasn't until the following morning that we discovered I'd been trying to pound them into the solid sandstone base of what had been an old building site.
At least we were able to have hot showers and warm ourselves but this night we slept in the car seeing that the tent looked like a partially collapsed hot air balloon.

Sunday morning we headed back to Sydney, suffering from a flat tyre en-route, which we had fixed at Queanbeyan.

And so ended our weekend of rampant passion.
We still laugh about it every Easter.