Month: September 2020

Remembering Helen Reddy

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Helen Reddy was one of my favourite singers growing up. She sang many songs I loved. And I was super proud she was Australian. I am Woman, her most famous song has been the theme song to my life and woman everywhere. It was first recorded in the early 70’s when I was becoming a teenager and adjusting to my unique personality. I love the chorus:

“Oh yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong
(Strong)
I am invincible
(Invincible)
I am woman”

After listening tonight to the first and last versions, more than 50 years apart, I think I like the later version better. Not something that can be said about many singer’s voices.

I also love Helen’s version of You and Me Against The World. She stated that she changed it to be about a mother and daughters relationship. I am sure it will be a song that is giving her family peace as they deal with their loss.

“And when one of us is gone,
And one of us is left to carry on,
Then remembering will have to do,
Our memories alone will get us through
Think about the days of me and you,
Of you and me against the world.”

Amazing woman, amazing life and unforgettable music.

First Fleet Memorial Gardens

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The First Fleet Memorial Gardens are a long way from Botany Bay where they first landed. They are nearly 400 kilometres away in the small village of Wallabadah. But why? In true Australian honesty on the entry to the Gardens is a sign telling everyone that they were the only Council who would grant permission to build them.

The gardens are the brain child of Ray Collins, OAM. A stonemason who discovered he was a descendent of the First Fleet. His dream then became to build a permanent memorial to acknowledge all who first settled our beautiful county. The convicts, marines and their families alike.

The ships of the First Fleet were:

  • Sirius
  • Supply
  • Charlotte
  • Scarborough
  • Prince of Wales
  • Lady Penrhyn
  • Friendship
  • Alexander
  • Borrowdale
  • Fishburn
  • Golden Grove

To make it simple Ray has listed the members of the First Fleet in two ways. There is a large story board that lists all First Fleeters alphabetically as well as specific information about them. He has also created a winding path divided out separately for each ship. In this space was a list of everyone on the ship.

My husband and I both knew that there were people on the First Fleet with our names. We have no idea if we are related to them but were excited to find our names. We found the Scarborough had both of our names on it and I also had someone on the Charlotte. It turned out that most of the people with similar names were convicts although I think one of my husband’s namesakes was a lower ranking marine.

As luck would have it we actually met Ray Collins while staying at Quirindi. He is an interesting man happy to share his knowledge and experiences.

Ruby Tuesday#2 Quirindi

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Well, our first trip in Ruby was memorable. It started when the Antarctic blob hit Australia. This was a blast of extremely cold weather that brought snow to parts of the East Coast that hadn’t seen snow in over 15 years.

During out first trip Ruby moved about an inch to the right and was obstructing the driver’s mirror. This meant upon arrived in Quirindi Caravan Park, we had to take her off the ute. This was a double challenge. Partly because the weather was freezing, and secondly, because I am not great at directions. We could get her either centred or square on. But we struggled to get her both centered and square on quickly. After about half an hour, we had succeeded and we were inside celebrating preparing for our firat night in Ruby with the air conditioner on heat thawing out.

The quote “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans” by John Lennon totally described our first Ruby trip.

We had planned to spend our first night in Ruby, at Wallabadah Free Camp. This is half an hour south from our eventual destination. When we arrived at Wallabadah, we discovered the free camp was closed. Later in fact, we discovered all free camps in Liverpool Plains Council Area were closed due to COVID. The advantage of needing to change our plans was that w2e stayed in a paid caravan park and had electricity so we could keep warm.

Quirindi is a small town on the North West Slopes in the Liverpool Plains Shire. The area itself has a rich agricultural history and the main street pays respect to the area’s heritage by displaying the original stock brands on the footpath.

Photo credit; Liverpool Plains Attractions

Our overnight stay in Quirindi means there is still more to explore. Over the next week I will share with you the attractions we visited.

  • First Fleet Memorial Gardens
  • Who’d A-Thought It Lookout
  • Bob’s Shed
  • Peter Brock World

I hope you enjoy getting to know parts of Australia’s secret gems through the Ruby Tuesday series.

Sydney 2000 Olympics 20 Years On

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Today is the 20 year anniversary of the opening ceremony of Sydney 2000 Olympics. I remember the excitement and anticipation. The question on everyone’s lip was “who would light the flame and how?” Most people agreed with the top secret choices. Cathy Freeman – our biggest medal hopeful, an Aboriginal and a woman. The Sydney 2000 Olympics also celebrated 100 years of women competing in the Games. I think the concept of creating fire from water was very clever given Australia is an island.

It wasn’t until after the opening ceremony that Australia and the world was told a secret. When the flame (ring of fire) stopped on the rise to the cauldron, it wasn’t for dramatic effect. There was a problem. But, fortunately it was fixed just in time.

To celebrate today’s milestone, the Olympic cauldron was re lit. It now permanently resides in Cathy Freeman Park, Sydney Olympic Park. Unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions Cathy Freeman was unable to attend today’s ceremony in person.

Photo Credit: Sydney Morning Herald

When we lived in Sydney our house was in the suburb of Newington created from the old athlete’s village. One thing that disappoints me is apparently there is no list of which athletes/countries lived in each house. I would love to know the history of our house.

I loved living so close to a major part of Australia’s history. I loved spending time in Sydney Olympic Park and wished I had attended Sydney 2000. Despite this I was grateful to have attended the Paralympics and experienced some of the excitement.

The lighting of the cauldron today was not the first time it was re lit. I have seen it on a few occasions. I love it. It is an amazing experience to look up and see it burning. For me was like a beacon of hope making me think of the future and possibilities of life.

See photos of my previous visits below.

https://www.inspiringmax.com/weekly-photo-challenge-sydney-2000-flame/

Let’s Get Organised

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Let’s get organised. This is going to be my focus from now until the 2021. If 2020 is remembered for anything, I want it to be making a road map for my new life.

In general, I am a happy, positive, successful person. However, there is another side to me. I am a great procrastinator and leave many things to the last minute. The side effect of the later is that many things I start or want to start don’t get completed.

So to help motivate me on September 13, Positive Thinking Day, I am going to use the following quote.

Prior to going on holidays, I was exhausted and my life seemed to involve: work – rest repeat. The resting part however involved hours of watching TV. This was a habit I have only recently developed and although it was fun, it didn’t make me the best version of myself. In hindsight, I needed an injection of organisation.

Since returning from holidays where I broke these bad habits, I have returned to blogging and I am motivated to do things differently. As part of my work life, I am frequently telling others that they need to prioritize what they want to have in their life. So now it is my turn to take my own advice.

My secret mantra will be: Prioritize! Prioritize!Prioritize!

To help I have a new way to focus on my accountability when it comes to my organisational skills. After all, I only have me to blame.

Blogging

Learning

Activities

Meal Preparation

Exercise

Does anyone else want to join me in reclaiming 2020 for good?

Coffee Catch-Up #27

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If we were having coffee I would tell you I can’t believe that it has been over 3 months since I last blogged. Initially, this was due to writer’s block. I struggled to come up with any inspiration. I found it much easier when I first started blogging as I followed The Daily Post topics. If you have any suggestions or secrets to overcoming writer’s block I would love to hear them.

If we were having coffee I would tell you how much I’m enjoying using my sewing machine again. I hadn’t sewed for over 10 years but wanted to sew masks for my family. Operation cover up has been a family affair. My husband and I enjoyed going to Spotlight to choose fun materials to match everyone’s personalities. Then between my husband, daughter and I, after several trial runs, we eventually found a pattern that sat comfortably on all of our faces.

If we were having coffee I would tell you about our slide-on camper Ruby home. When it came to preparing her for our recent holiday, the hardest thing was deciding what was essential to take. This was because we were limited with weight availability. To fix this we needed to weigh everything we put in her. And if necessary find a lighter alternative. A bigger ute is able to carry a bigger load, so we will look for a new one before our longer trips. Eventually we won the battle and excluded 100 kilos worth of useful things. The we could legally depart and no longer put our insurance at risk.

If we were having coffee I would tell you how excited I was to buy myself a pie maker for my birthday. Today is my first attempt at making pies. I chose a basic beef mince pie for the filling. While cooking it had an amazing aroma. The frustration is the need for a delay between making the mince and making the pies. The reason is the mince filling needs to be cold when it goes into the shortcrust pastry or it will go soggy. End results, worth the effort for both regular and gluten free pies.

If we were having coffee I would ask you what is happening in your world. Let me know in the comments.

Ruby Tuesday # 1

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The past few months have seen my husband and I enter a new stage of our life. We bought a slide-on camper and began preparing to become grey nomads, a much more complicated task than I first realised. So many things to learn and yes we made a few rookie errors.

Over the last fortnight we took Ruby (the camper), on her maiden voyage, travelling around New South Wales. Yes, she is red. Actually she is the only red PUMA slide-on in Australia so there is no hiding. If you see us on the road stop by and have a chat.

On our first night free camping at a truck stop, we got chatting to the young lady behind the counter and she informed us that she had seen us earlier that day parked by the side of the road about 100 kilometres away. She said Ruby had made her smile as she had thought to herself how “cool” she looked.

Travelling in Australia during COVID is a weird experience, because of all by border closures. In New South Wales, we are trapped as you can’t cross the border to Queensland, Victoria or South Australia without a valid exemption, which are nearly impossible to get. Our limited travel options however, weren’t a problem to us. We just found small unusual towns to visit, now we are not limited to finding accommodation enroute.

To celebrate our new life style, I have decided to create a regular new blog feature – Ruby Tuesday – to share our adventures, interesting tidbits and learnings from our travels in Ruby. I hope you enjoy armchair travelling Australia with us.