Sunday dawned bright and sparkly and not too hot. We’d finished our Seine cruise and sixty-four of us were off the ship early for our transfer to the railway station to take a high-speed train to Lyon where we would board the SS Catherine on the Rhone River. The Tour de France would be finishing…
Well, the Queensland Government has removed all restrictions on folks entering Queensland. We were promised that would happen when 90% of the population was vaccinated. That figure has been reached. Hopefully we’re inching towards becoming Australians again, instead of being Queenslanders. Mind you, I’m not in a hurry to go interstate. You never know what…
Here we are in week one of a new year. To nobody’s great surprise, the omicron variant of covid-19 is spreading like wildfire. But I’m a little bit surprised that the Powers-That-Be did not anticipate the impact on testing centres, both from people being exposed to the disease and from people who are required to…
It’s not about a dragon, though. It’s about that virus. Just as we were all starting hope that after pretty nearly two full years covid-19 would fade into just another ‘flu, it has raised the middle finger and laughed. Europe is facing a new spike in infections and deaths and there’s an even more virulent…
It seems the Delta covid variant has crossed the Tasman to New Zealand, the result of a Kiwi going home from Sydney to Auckland. Predictably, the disease has spread rapidly and, also predictably, Jacinta Arden has locked the country down. I’m not taking cheap shots at New Zealand – well, no more than I’d take…
Some of you might have noticed I didn’t write a blog last week. The news is full of the covid disaster in India and the never ending war between the Palestinians and the Israelis, while at home it’s about the latest covid stuff-up and people wondering when the borders will finally reopen. It all becomes…
The first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox is approaching. Christians call it Easter, probably the most religiously important celebration of their calendar. Parents of school-age kids call it the start of the two-week first term holidays. Other people call it a long weekend. It’s a special time for many different reasons…
Let’s start with an apology. Today’s post is a little late because I wanted to finish off the first draft of a novella I’ve been taking forever to write. I found writing fiction particularly difficult in the last months of 2020 because of the momentous events in America. To a Boomer like me, born in…