A trip down memory lane.

I recently spent 3 days with my Son Marcus on a trip planned mainly to catch up with some of my friends and family that I missed when I was unable to attend my sister Merle's funeral last year, as luck would have it we found ourselves standing at Merle's grave on the anniversary of her passing, this added significantly to the visit.

We started out with my cousin Dan and his wife Kath, Dan and I were great mates when we were children, you know how you have that special cousin!!!! but had lost touch over the years, we spent about 4 hours together with barely a break in the chatter, a great visit.

On to the cemetery next, I seem to remember having difficulty keeping photos in order with Blogger, hope they come out right, next was a quick visit with Merle's oldest son John and his lady Heather, always a joy to catch up with them.

To round of day one we visited a lifelong friend Keith where we spent an  enjoyable night, chatting into the wee small hours, Keith had a golf game organized for the next morning we were able to indulge Marcus' passion for browsing second hand and antique stores for a couple of hours.

Another town and another lifetime friend, my best mate Alan's widow Jan and their lovely daughter Carol, more good times and memories,  we left there with just enough time for a quick visit with their son Gary and his wife Christine before Marcus had to head for Geelong and work, as his car was in Melbourne that left me with some time to do some more nostalgic sight-seeing.

This included drive by visits to old movie theatres, I used to frequent, a couple of old Pubs where we used to hang out, a couple of the old houses we lived in when I was a kid, in short a full dose of memories to top off a great weekend, thank you Marcus for excellent company and all those we visited for their hospitality and company.

 Kath, myself and Dan sharing memories at Benalla.

 Merle and Harold's grave site at Shepparton.

 Myself and my "Little Mate" Keith at Tocumwal.

 Jan and myself at Yarrawonga.

 The charming Carol at Yarrawonga.

 Myself and Marcus while we were at Yarrawonga.

The house we lived in when I was 10 to  14 years old.

 This was where we lived when  Merle married and left home, that's when I discovered that I missed her!!!!

The intersection where we gate crashed the Royal visit in 1954, see post on Facebook Jan 13 for details.

Just a note from holtieshouse

G'day, time for another quick post.
My cancer treatment program, radiation and chemotherapy, is just over the halfway mark and to date i have had no adverse side effects, they caution me that there is still time for these to kick in but I'm choosing to believe that I might dodge that particular bullet.
Again I am indebted to my family and friends for their support over the past couple of months, without them I can't even imagine what my life would have become, the current carer is my youngest son Bruce he relieved my good mate Warren who in turn had offered to come up so that Vicki could have a break, she returns at the end of the week so Bruce can go home and back to work, between them all we have been a great support to our airlines!!!!!
For any of you who read this and are my sister Merle's friends I'm sad to say I think her blogging days might be over, she is quite well in  herself but can't summon up the energy to get back to blogging, this is sad because she really loved her blog and the circle of friends she made from it.
Queensland has been experiencing a lot of rain again, not the torrential  variety that causes flooding, just the sort that grinds you down and becomes a bloody pest, its harder to remain upbeat when the sky is always cloudy and grey.
Don't get the idea from this Gripping post that I'm giving up on life, far from it, as the time passes I'm more and more confident that my number isn't up just yet.
For those who read this I thank you for your support and perseverance.

Peter.

On The Road Again

I'm doing my Willie Nelson impersonation, no not the one with prohibited substances, I'm "on the road again", I'm visiting with my Sister at present... she has been having her share of problems again, a couple of falls in pretty rapid succession and is quite frail and shaky still, there's always something isn't there.

The next couple of weeks are pretty well booked up visiting friends and family, the friends range between 30/50 year friendships so its always a pleasant time when we can sit back and swap stories... true or otherwise!!!!

Will also spend time with Son Marcus and Family and Daughter Vicki so there are plenty of good times coming up in my world in the near future.

Australia is experiencing its hottest weather (on a whole nation basis) on record, this translates into Bushfires (Wildfires) throughout the 4 Eastern States, there has been anywhere between a dozen and a hundred fires blazing on any given day for the last 2 weeks.

Some of my Australian readers (if there are any left) will be pleased to here that I spent a few pleasant hours catching up with WT ( of a dingo's got my Barbie fame) I hadn't heard much from Peter for quite some time so was very pleased to find him in excellent health and spirits, this was not the case when I saw him last.

Well for an almost non-blogger that's about all for now I hope your New Year has started out as well as mine and will see you in cyberspace again soon???

Not another birthday!!

Let me just catch my breath...... Ah that's better, for someone like me who lives a very quiet life things around here have really been popping.
Let me start of with my sister, Merle had me very worried as I said in my previous post, I left her for a week while I visited my son Marcus and his family, we were joined there by my favourite daughter Vicki, on May 23 Vicki and I went back to Merle's where we were greeted by a TOTALLY rejuvenated Merle.
The transformation was amazing, she was back to her bright happy self, I must admit having seen her at perhaps her lowest point only a week previously I wonder how quickly she may descend again? but at least for the moment she is back, May 24 is her birthday and I had arranged for some close friends and family to have lunch with us at a very nice local pub.
We all enjoyed the food and company and most importantly Merle had a great time, while she doesn't like being the centre of attention its nice to have friends make a bit of a fuss over you.
For the next 4 days she is 3 years older than I am until on the 28th of May I turned 76 and we're back to 2 years older.
My birthday was spent back in Geelong where family and friends again gathered to wish me well, I make the same comment about myself as I did about Merle, under the spotlight isn't my favourite place either but again with good food and company it was a great birthday.
I managed to talk my favourite daughter into coming home to Queensland with me for a few weeks visit while she waits... none to patiently, for her new house to be built on the outskirts of Geelong Victoria
SOOO Cyclone Vicki has hit my poor little quiet home... She has rearranged my kitchen to the degree that I don't even bother searching anymore I just ask where the item I'm looking for lives now, the office has had a similar treatment and the rest of the house is under threat so who knows where I'll end up by the time she leaves.

 The Lunch Group, Shirley, Frank, Peter, Merle, Vicki, Jacqui, Keith, Marcus.

 The main contenders

Jacqui, Peter, Vicki, Merle, Kathy... Jacqui is my ex wife and the mother of my 4 kids, Kathy is Merles Youngest daughter

Kristen. Merle. Kate... Kristen & Kate are Kathy's Daughters

Jorja, Nick, Merle, Kathy... Jorja and Nick are Kathy's daughter & Son. There is one more son who didn't make it to Shepparton, they live about 5 hours away.

That is a very brief sketch of my recent life, back home after an uneventful and pleasant trip I find that my blog was infested with an anonymous visitor who was leaving me 20or 30 spam messages per day in my efforts to clean them up I have lost all your lovely comment back to early 2010, so my apologies for the inconvenience of word verification but my delete button was wearing out.

Happy days are here again....

I thought it was time to do a more normal (read happy) post, I've had a visit from my son Marcus, he's the one who recently turned 50, it was a real tonic to have him here for the 5 days, we managed to catch up with a few friends and generally have a good time together.
Ken and Jackie were my house minders when I went walkabout until recently and were the couple who's wedding photos I took, they now live at TCB so we don't see quite as much of one another

Taken at the lovely little seaside town of Tin Can Bay, Ken, Jackie, Peter, Marcus

From a bit closer up you can see the state of my Bells Palsy, perhaps this is one not to enbiggen?

We spent a day at one of my very favourite places, Australia Zoo, with images of Steve Irwin everywhere.

A kangaroo and its Joey which at this age still spends most of its time in mum's pouch

The weather has been perfect of late, COOOL nights but beautiful days, Queensland winters are famous throughout the country, this is just as well because the ladies on my computer haven't received any clothes yet despite the prayers.... so we are still communicating by braille.

Just a quick catch-up post.

Where does the time go?? I can't believe its two weeks since I attended Anne's funeral as I said in my last post Sad Times.... those of you who know me will understand my reluctance to agree when Keith asked if I would be the first to speak at the church.

With my in-built dislike of public speaking and my tendency to choke up and become incoherent at times like that the results were by no means assured of success, again I must say that to pay a tribute to a lovely lady was an honour and something I just couldn't refuse to do.

Afterwards I had several people comment about the words I said so it must have come out OK.

The trip down did give me another chance to spend some time with my sister Merle and also to catch up with my Son Marcus and his family who have just moved back to Victoria from WA, they have settled in the very nice little town of Ocean Grove, near Geelong so as this is only about one third of the distance that WA is from Queensland who knows I might even see a bit more of them.

Tomorrow I have another appointment with my eye surgeon, just to finalise a date to have the first cataract surgery, wish me luck!!!

Not quite marooned.

The three wise monkeys (See no evil, Speak no evil, Hear no evil.)

There seems to be a conspiracy to keep us in Victoria at the moment, I'm not sure my sister would be involved in the conspiracy (after all we've been here for 6 days!!!!) there have been drought breaking rains right throughout Victoria with lots of flooding ranging from minor to serious dependent on location.
This has resulted in a lot of road closures but it seems that our next chosen destination will be okay when we leave Merle's tomorrow, there may be photos to follow it depends how close we get to floodwaters.
There has been a unanimous vote that this visit was a good one, that's always good to know!!

Touring With Frank

Well folks I'm on the move again,this weekend I'm visiting Warren in Brisbane and on Monday I'm heading south... through NSW to Victoria where I will visit with lots of friends and family, this is an annual (at least) catch up and always enjoyable.

After a couple of weeks of this I will Head for SA to visit with Favourite Daughter and FOSSIL, they are VERY busy with their best harvest for many years so I'm keeping out of the way for a while until they get most of it done.

The plan was that then Warren and I would go across to WA but as he is still a part of the work force committed to paying our tax bill he was unable to get holidays at the right time so we have put that trip on hold until next year.

Will keep in touch when the opportunity arises, have fun... I intend to!!!

Favourite Daughter's Visit

The wonderful week of my Favourite Daughters visit is over, she flew
back to Adelaide VERY early on Tuesday morning, we stayed at Warrens
which is only about 40 minutes from the Brisbane Airport but we still
had to be up at 3.45 am to be sure of getting there in time.

Please click on photos to enbiggen.

You will recognize this photo as my current header photo, it was taken at
Mt Tambourine about 10 years ago.

Same girl, same mountain, same fence but without the pretty flower boxes last Monday,
we had a little trouble finding the spot but in the original one Vicki is holding a teddy
bear from "Teddies at Tambourine" and the business is still right there
Its hard to know just where to start with the week that flew past but we did achieve
a lot.... starting out with buying a new car... I really loved my Hyundai i30 as I've
said before but the local Hyundai people made me an offer I couldn't resist on an
upgrade to a "Sonata" which in the Hyundai range is their luxury 4 door sedan, it has
the same diesel motor and auto transmission that I loved in the i30 and an absolute
host of features for quiet comfortable motoring, so long story short we bought one!!!
Of course we had to go for a test drive, so in the next 4 days we did about 1000 km
(600 miles) visited some friends and saw some lovely scenery.

Here is Vicki standing beside the Golden beast (which Hyundai describe as silky beige)
at the nearby town of Maryborough.
We had some great meals, all within Vicki's fairly rigid dietary rules, and I'm very
pleased to report that her health is excellent, the change over the last 12 months is
nothing short of miraculous, that's not to say that she doesn't still have some issues
but compared with the state she was in last Christmas she is great.

Vicki is celebrating her birthday

It is well known within the family that I very much like cheese cake!!!!!!!


My punishment for not attending Vicki's 50th it seems is to be tortured with provocative photos of all the cheese cake I am missing out on.... I can assure my tormentors that I am well aware of the consequences of my decision not to attend the function being held at the Foster ranch at Wudinna.

While it is always disappointing to miss out on a feast of cheese cake it is much more so to miss the chance to see the family members who will be in attendance, as well as my favourite daughter I am saddened to miss seeing Alan, my oldest son, (he who sits grinning as he contemplates eating my share of said cheese cakes) Alan recently had a very bad fall which resulted in a fractured skull and a week in hospital, so it would have been nice to see him and his lovely wife Lyn, alias "the ferret" (a long story!!).

I'm guessing that the shadow of the photographers head which is in the photo belongs to one who desires to be known as my favourite son-in-law, he has on occasion gained this status but I should hasten to warn him
that tormenting me with photos of cheese cake I'm not going to have a share of is not the best way of getting to be FSIL!!!!

Please click on the photo to enbiggen it.


The gathering is being held as a "thankyou" to all the kind folk who have been so supportive of Vicki over the last 12 months when her health has been a very real worry at times, and also of Rex during his recent bout with prostate cancer, they are both enjoying very good health at the moment and we pray that this continues.
If you are a regular reader here you will already know of the troubles that have befallen them over the last year or so, and for those who do know the story, you have most probably offered some kind words or prayers for them during this time...
please join us in a "virtual party" to celebrate Vicki's birthday and their good health, thank you one and all!!!
it doesn't hurt that at this stage of the year they are looking forward to what has been a very elusive thing over the past decade... A GOOD YEARS HARVEST... too early to start cheering yet but the signs are good.

My favourite Daughter’s turning 50.

My little girl is turning 50

Don’t ask how this can be

Its seems such a short time

Since she bounced upon my knee.

Gone are the stages of her life

The joy, tears, and traumas of her youth

She is now a woman, mother, and a wife

May she get some peace now in her life.

She’s been a friend to many

One of the very best

You’ll never find her lacking

When she’s put to life’s test.

So to all who have gathered round her

To help celebrate this night

Make sure you have a good time

And make her night just right.

From a loving Dad.

Half way mark.

Just a very quick post from the Motel at Cobar, central NSW, a fairly uneventful day.
In answer to a couple of queries;
WT; We will fly back to Brisbane from Adelaide.
Judy; Yes Creagh will pay for the fuel used on the trip.... if he ever wants to actually take delivery of the vehicle.
Robyn; I cant really answer your comment, cos I can't spell Pshaaww!!!... its sort of raspberry like.

We traveled through the nice little town of Warren so Wazza had to pose at the sign above.

I've always been a conservative "analogue" type driver, Wazza, out of the goodness of his heart, has been teaching me to drive "digitally", what are friends for??? this is the difficult double digit maneuver.

This one is the more universal single digit one... I am slowly getting the hang of this with Wazza's expert tuition. We haven't covered the audio side of digital driving yet but he has promised to teach me the correct audio accompaniment for these signs... and I am a good student!!!!

A South Australian Delivery

Surprise, surprise, I'm going to visit my other home (in SA) again... before any alarm bells start ringing though this trip isn't related to either Vicki or Rex' health, although it will be great to see them again.
This time it has to do with a long time friend of the Fosters, who has become a friend of mine as well, he bought a Toyota Land Cruiser with an extended chassis here in Queensland and was discussing how best to get it to SA with Vicki and Rex when someone who shall remain nameless suggested... Oh Dad would drive it over for you!!!!!
So rising nicely to the bait I rang Wazza to see if he could get a week of work and come for a trip to SA with me... he managed to do this so we are off to pick up the vehicle tomorrow (Saturday May 30) and we once more will set forth on another adventure.
You can expect to hear a bit more of this trip over the next week or so, its impossible to spend a week with Wazza without lots of photos and lots of joviality which I will try to share with you.


Here is the vehicle in question and the driver in question too, the vehicle started its life as an 80 series Land Cruised wagon if you look carefully you can see the curve of the rear wheel arch just behind the rear door, this has been converted into one of the many storage compartments, the chassis was extended by about 80 centimetres and the trayback was then added.

The first of quite a few fuel stops in our journey, I'm expecting to get between 16 and 20 MPG and
we have about 1200 miles to go.
Will be back once we get to Adelaide.

Back to Wudinna.

Here is the latest on our Christmas saga, we will spend New Years Eve crossing
the Nullarbor Plain which stretches between WA and SA, this is about 1600 kms,
we are hoping that this won't be too uncomfortable for Vicki, she has made a
comfortable little nest across the back seat of the Land Cruiser... fingers crossed.

The beachfront at Esperance WA this is a very nice tourist/farming town.

We spent last night at the farm of friends of Vicki and Rex near Esperance WA
they were neighbors and close friends at Wudinna before moving to WA.
While rex and Ken caught up on the farming practices that vary between the 2
states, Vicki and Judy had a good chance to catch up on all the news.
Today we came to Esperance for some retail therapy for the girls, we will leave
from here at daylight tomorrow for the trip to Wudinna.
Wish us luck!!!!!

Traveling Still, Always Will.

We went for a trip within a trip over the last few days, took Merle with us this time, first stop was to visit friends of mine of some 45 years standing, Allan had not been well over the last few months but we found him much improved and had a great, if very short, visit with he and his wife Lorna in Victoria's 2nd city, Geelong.

As usual click on photos to enbiggen.

Lorna, myself, and Allan all lookin' pretty chipper.

We traveled along "The Great Ocean Road" for about 150 kms, this is a very scenic road that for much of the time skirts along the Southern Ocean, it's winds around a lot of bends and gets a bit hilly at times, not Merles favourite things but she survived it OK.

A typical scene on the GOR, the day was a bit overcast so not as much colour in the photos as there could have been.

We were impressed by a number of wood carving in a park at the small township of Apollo Bay, this one had a pair of seals carved from driftwood... I hate talented people!!

There are a lot of overseas visitors travel this road, we were amused by the fairly constant reminder signs suggesting it would be nice if they drove on "our" side of the road, we hadn't seen these anywhere else, even on the Queensland Gold Coast which has more O/S visitors than most places they aren't used.

The purpose of this trip was partly so that we could visit Merles youngest daughter Kathy,she and hubby Ard have a dairy farm where they milk 250 cows twice a day, 7 days a week... you know the deal.
The photo is of three generations Kate (Kathy's daughter) Merle and Kathy, a good lookin' bunch I reckon.

The farm is on a very lush green section of the state... most of which is in drought, this photo shows a paddock of freshly mown hay which will be rolled into round hay bales for cattle fodder.

The coastal scenery along this section of the GOR is very good, this photo is of Lockard Gorge where a sailing ship "The Lock Ard" sank during a violent storm at the turn of last century with 52 of the 54 people on board drowning.

These sandstone outcrops are known as the Twelve Apostles which is a bit of a stretch now as the sea has reclaimed 4 of them and is working hard on several of the remaining 8.


A kindly American tourist took this photo of Warren and I, we usually don't have many together as one of us is the photographer normaly.
I' try to get a more informative post up sometime soon!!!!

Almost Home (are we there yet?)

Woo Hoo... Just got a call from Vicki, all good news,
they are confident that her pain will be controllable
and she will return to good health soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There comes a time in a mans life when his new boots become more of an attraction
than his new hat to that certain part of his "thinking" anatomy...... now I'm not
making any admissions here or giving away any secrets... I'm just sayin'!!!!!!!

Those of you.... Loyal, but starved of better quality reading material..... who have stayed with me
over the last three months will know that I have been on an extended visit with my daughter
and son in law, Vicki and Rex, in outback South Australia.
This visit has been both wonderful and soul destroying at the same time, lots of you would know
the agony of watching your child suffer and not being able to do anything to ease the pain they
have, while Vicki is no longer a child in years she will always be my little girl and to sit by while
she has been through so much is a hard thing to do.
A major part of the waiting will end today, we hope, when she gets the results of her blood tests,
these we confidently expect will confirm that her "Cushings Disease" is either under control or
cured, the issue of chronic pain can then become the focal point of her treatment.
It felt a bit odd to have been "there" for so much of it all and then flying out two days before
the news from her specialist comes.... today, my reasoning was that as farm life is relatively
quiet at the moment Rex is able to spend time with her that otherwise can be a problem, and
some time to themselves would be the best medicine.
So once more I boarded an air-plane with hopes high that I would be seated next to the young
lady below.... once more my dreams were dashed!!!!

I am spending a few days with my good friend Warren (Wazza) the occasional blogger,
before finally heading for Gympie, and home, on Sunday, I hope to be able to locate my
house behind the lush tropical growth that surrounds it, more on that to follow.

Health Report

Yea Haa!!!!! The visit to the specialist in charge of Vicki’s case has found the PROBABLE cause of her Cushing’s disease to be an imbalance of her cortisol levels, if this proves to be the case they will be able to treat her with medication to get the balance correct.

There is still a lesion on her pituitary gland but they cannot at this stage find any trace of a tumor, this has been the reason for all the repeated tests, there is now a 3 month course of medication during which time there will be adjustments made to the dosage until they get it right.

There was a very high cortisol reading at first but this was followed by an extremely low reading, the high reading indicated a tumor and was very worrying however we were then told that the reading had dropped to a dangerously low level in the space of a week, this is even more serious than the high levels and indicated that her system had shut down on its job of manufacturing cortisol, the medication should kick start the natural process and dispel the Cushing’s from her system.

All of this stuff is way above my level of understanding, so I hope I have described it accurately, all I know for sure is that I am eternally grateful to the diagnostic team who have been so diligent in their work and to all the friends and family who have rallied around with support and prayers.

It is impossible to relay the gratitude we feel for this support, just be assured that we have really appreciated it, I have opened a new blogsite for Vicki and I’m sure that as soon as she feels able to spend some time at the computer you will hear from her direct.

The photos below are of my oldest son Alan’s wife and two daughters who flew in from Perth WA as a support group for Vicki, for the last 4 days Vicki’s Mother Jacqui and her husband Walter have also been on hand to help out, a big thank you to all of them.

Grand daughters Aimee & Jenna, Daughter in law Lyn and Vicki.

Breakfast for 7 from MacDonalds drive through, Jenna & Vicki still in PJs

The same two doing a spot of ironing on Jenna's top.... There has been much laughter over the
last week which I'm sure has been a great help for Vicki

You've been framed!

Update!!!! there were just too many good friends left out so I weakened and
bought another frame, so now there is room for 14 more faces but then I
run out of wall space too so this will be the last update of photos, once again
I apologize if you miss out, I'll post the extra frame later (it's not done yet)

Thought you might like to see my latest project, its 28 of my friends
from my blogroll, there are a lot more than 28 on the blogroll but
as the frames are designed to take 14 photos of varying sizes there
are only 28... I had to print all different sizes and then fix them all
in place without getting them mixed up or twisted... very time
consuming so I think we are stuck on 28... sorry if you missed out.






















The lucky ones that feature are

In L/H frame................................. In R/H frame

Jack K, Trucker Bob................., Ken, Marcus,
Monty, Poopie, Hoss,................. Laurie, Ann, Robyn,
Meow, Big Dave......................., Jamie Dawn, Lois Lane,
Joy, Judy.................................. Jan, Warren,
Sandy, Rachel, LBB.................... Merle, June, Christina,
Jules, Maria............................... Walker, Cliff.

These will take pride of place in my "Office/Computer Station" which is
where I seem to spend an inordinate amount of my time these days, so
you will never be far from my sight/thoughts.

A Chance encounter?

Some people have all the luck.


Hey you know how this is gonna turn out with my luck.

A Chance encounter?

For anyone who read Wazza’s comment about a chance encounter I had in Perth…. he seemed to think that this was newsworthy… to me it was more of an everyday occurrence… Yeah, along with the flying pigs!!!

My son Bruce picked me up at the Airport when I arrived in Perth, Bruce manages the bar at the social Baseball club where his two sons play, this is an honorary position but he takes it seriously thus we needed to stop of at a hotel to purchase some cartons of grog for the bar that weekend.

While Bruce attended to this a car pulled up alongside his, where I was sitting, a young lady, probably about 30 years old, said hello and struck up a conversation, as she looked vaguely familiar I presumed she was a friend of some member of my family that I had met, perhaps years ago? she offered me her phone number and then, seeing Bruce, asked if he was my son, commenting that he was also quite handsome when I said that he was.

She then handed Bruce the piece of paper with her name ‘Lou” and her phone number on it, they exchanged a few words then she drove off.

When Bruce returned to the car I asked him who she was…. he didn’t have any idea, so as I came across all the other family members I asked them if they knew the mysterious Lou… none of them did.

I am now left with the mystery of who she was…. if in fact we had met before, or whether she just took a wild fancy to me…. or was it Bruce???

I suppose the easy way to solve this would have been to ring the number and ask, but now I am on the other side of the country and it doesn’t seem so important… besides Bruce has the number.

Now for those of you who have seen the imposing figure that I cut, does it seem strange that an attractive young lady might want to “chat me up”???

no , I thought not, so there Wazza!!!!!!

Also regarding his query as to who Paula was (the young lady who drove me to the Airport when I left Perth) she is the Lady friend that Bruce escorted to Alan’s party, I was impressed that she offered the ride to someone she had only met very briefly twice before, a very nice gesture I thought.

Life wasn't meant to be easy.

EXCUSE ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!! this seemed appropriate.

Hi all, yet another disaster has befallen Margaret and her blogging career, even
though I kept her laptop here for a week and ran it for hours to make sure it was
stable…. six hours after I left her the little Bastard had died again, it once more
refuses to boot up…. and there is no password involved this time, we managed to
remove that completely.

Next week I am going to Brisbane to pick up Carolyn and two grandsons from the
airport, (Marcus’ family, he will be here a week later, so on the way to Brisbane I
will pick up the offending laptop again and have another look for the problem.

There are some family problems that are occupying my time and causing me some
concerns at this time too so it is likely that I will be even more sporadic with my
blogging than I have been of late, and I confess I have been quite erratic of late.

Just re-read that and it sounds like the family problems are with Marcus.......
they are not, and once the water becomes a little less muddy I will talk about
them.

So while the contact may not be as regular as usual rest assured I still think of
you all as my friends and will be back on a regular basis when things smooth out
here.

A Dear Dr Phil seemed appropriate too.

Dear Dr. Phil.

When I retired, I could hardly wait to spend time enjoying my favorite pastime -- bass fishing. I got my own little fishing boat and tried to get my wife to join me, but she just never liked fishing. Finally, one day at the Bait & Tackle Shop, I got to talking to Sam , the shop owner who it turned out loves bass fishing as much as I do. We quickly became fishing buddies. As I said the wife doesn't care about fishing. She not only refuses to join us she always complains that I spend too much time fishing.
A few weeks ago Sam and I had the best fishing trip ever. Not only did I catch the most beautiful bass you've ever seen, only a few minutes later Sam must have caught his twin brother! So I took a picture of Sam holding up the two nice bass that we caught and showed the picture to the wife hoping that maybe she'd get interested. Instead she says she doesn't want me to go fishing at all anymore! And she wants me to sell the boat! I think she just doesn't like to see me enjoying myself. What would you do? Tell the wife to forget it and continue my hobby or quit fishing and sell the boat as she insists?
Thanks,

Fisherman.

PS Enclosed is a picture of Sam with the two bass we caught.

Dear Fisherman,

Get rid of that narrow - minded wife.

That's a nice pair of bass!

Dr. Phil.



A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald but if he has fire,
women will like him.

Mae West