2nd anniversary

As posted on FaceBook.

It is hard to believe it is two years since our Ray died. I did admire his adventurous spirit, from having elephants walk over him, to kite flying behind a boat strapped to a Thai man, to zip lining in Canada and South Africa, and riding an ostrich in the latter country.

Everyone misses you Ray. Here he is holding an ostrich chick. He loved our South African holiday so much.

The good Christians of south eastern US

Melbourne's Burke Road stretches from Caulfield to Ivanhoe, and in the 1970s our then Prime Minister called it the longest street of bible bashing bastards in Australia. No one in the road voted for him, so he had nothing to lose by the statement. 

Step forward to the mid 2020s and many huge houses that contained a family have been demolished for pairs of upmarket townhouses, containing a downsizing elderly couple, widow or widower. This has done nothing for the shortage of housing in our country. 

While I doubt there are too many are church goers now, the residents are still wealthy and will still vote for the conservative party. It's all about the share market and their tax beneficial self managed superannuation funds.  

But for the better, the good burghers of Burke Road would have possibly supported gay marriage, are probably not anti abortion, and truth be told, many would have a social conscience, and like to see their taxes helping the less fortunate in life.

Ok, I am comparing apples to oranges, I think. But could the US bible belt with its social attitudes move on as the demographic residents of Burke Road did?

Could I add to this map the anti abortion protesters too? Is there anything else US citizens could add to this MAGA stronghold? Is this the area of Hillary's 'basket of deplorables'? 

Apologies if I stole this from you, and to whoever you stole it from.

Castlemaine 1

Unrequested by me, Phyllis had prepared the car for my journey, wiped down the exterior, vacuumed, P plates removed and filled with petrol. 

There was no point setting off early when I couldn't check into my motel room until 2pm. I left home at some time after 11 and with a break for sustenance at a truck stop, (services in England. I don't know what they are called in America) I still reached Castlemaine early. I visited the nearby supermarket for supplies, and then it was near enough to check in time.

The room was nice enough, and the aside from the tiny brown floor tiles in the bathroom, it had been updated to modern and fresh.

 

Not that I saw anyone use it, and not knowing if it was heated, the pool and spa did look rather good and well maintained. 

Celebrating the gold miners of Castlemaine, in the middle of a roundabout is this statue and the water wheel works, filling and pouring out water.

I can't remember what this was. 

Like many country towns, there are huge open storm water drains at the sides of streets.

I drove around a bit, becoming familiar with the town's layout. Up a steep hill was the Burke and Wills monument, they being two explorers who set off inland in the mid 1800s and perished during their attempt to travel Australia south to north. 

Erected by public subscription AD 1862.

The views of the town below were rather good.

I wanted to see one more thing before my late afternoon rest, and that was the Alfred Passalaqua Memorial Lookout. It was a twelve minute drive from where I was. The photo of the escarpment does not do it justice. It was quite something. I should research how it was formed, but I won't. 

With some zoom, this could be Mount Alexander in the distance. 

As you can see the gravel road is very steep. I selected manual gear option and the car held first gear down the hill. It still reached an unbraked 25km/h.

I returned to the motel for my late afternoon rest, and then had my usual pre dinner drink, and realised I couldn't legally drive to get dinner, so I walked to the supermarket and bought a bachelor's handbag. Very naughty but very nice.

Musical Monday

Thanks to Linda for reminding me of this song, and so many decades later it is still great. I am bit too young for The Beatles (take that, kapow).

I've never really taken notice of Ringo Starr which led me to check him out. Yeah, I like his looks and the last photos are of him in his eighties. Absolutely amazing. Sexiest Beatle, for sure. He had style, he had grace, Ringo gave very good face.

The song is quite brief, as were songs at that time. I have tried to train my ears to be more sophisticated about music, really listening closely to whatever I choose. The sounds quite sophisticated to me, especially for the time.

I enjoyed the rabbit hole I partly went down as I checked out Ringo. I didn't look at his Wikipedia entry or any bio.

Windows 11 update seems to have turned on autoplay a next song, which I thought I had turned off. It was nice to hear too. Go on. Wallow in some nostalgia with Mary. 

Sadly I also knew this next to play one too, Mouldy Old Dough. The seventies were a crazy musical time.

YouTube's algorithm that curates my music feeds has kept me up very late at night in the past. Grand Designs, England, with its superior being Kevin is about to appear on my tv screen. I might just have an evening of music.