Gloom and Doom
There's no earthquakes, no cyclones, no floods and other weather drama here and the Izzie doesn't live in the bushfire danger zone of the hills but the weeks and weeks of 35 celsius plus day in and day out and now with icky sticky humidity tossed in is totally soul sapping
Still cannot get over how so so much has happened in the big bad world in the space of only 8 weeks or so. It will be interesting to see this time in 20/20 hindsight
Not much of a TV or youtube watcher but today's papers were full of stories about the earthquake in Christchurch. It seemed only like a few weeks ago when they had that Saturday earthquake which trashed the botanic gardens and some gorgeous old buildings there but amazingly no one was killed. Guess that the timing is everything
Even the cathedral turned out not to be safe.
Was in Christchurch with the ma for four or five days in February 2003 and associated the place with the train station from hell, lots of churches and beautiful gardens, pot holed and ramshackle roads and the post office near the cathedral with all those gorgeous "Lord of the Rings" stamps and post cards.
It was the city where they had sold off the train station in the city centre to developers in order to make a quick buck and built a new one in the back of beyond with very limited access to buses or any other forms of public transport. The taxi which seemed to take ages went past the Grand Chanceller hotel - vaguely remember there was a pool and palm trees. It was boom time for tourism back then.
Was so so looking forward to doing the Tranzalpine train journey but those plans got scuttled on discovering just how difficult it was to get to the station
The developers built a cinema and shopping centre on the spot where the train station used to be. There are a lot of pictures of collapsed buildings but very few maps so it is hard to join the dots from what we saw some seven years ago
It seemed so random who lived and who died. One woman decided to answer an email instead of going out for a cigarette. In this particular case this choice saved her life but for others it worked the other way around especially those who had just started at the mining company building
The earthquake is a very big story here in Oz as there is such a close connection between the two countries. Apparently the Kiwis refer to Oz as the "West Island" which Izzie thinks is just gorgeous
It's certainly pushed poor old crazy Colonel Gaddafi off the front pages. Even without understanding a word of Arabic - just listening to the critter on the radio without looking at his bitter and twisted facial expressions - the guy has gone totally nuts. Nothing like absolute power for decades to warp one's sense of reality.
It was almost like listening to Hitler's rabble rousing war speeches
Wondering if the Saudis will offer asylum to Gaddafi like they have to every other tin pot dictator on the planet. Here's hoping that they are next. They seem to think it too as they are out there offering freebies to the folks to keep them fat and happy
Wondering who the US military will sell their toys to now that all their most reliable big spending customers are dropping off their perches.
Looks like its time to find a new evil enemy as with a bit of luck the Mullahs and their mob will also soon be a bunch of has beens. Like those poor old priests in Ireland
Now that's a place that's also entertaining. Everything seems to be falling apart. The serpent just slinks along the fence and watches with amusement at the antics of the crazy humans
Still cannot get over how so so much has happened in the big bad world in the space of only 8 weeks or so. It will be interesting to see this time in 20/20 hindsight
Not much of a TV or youtube watcher but today's papers were full of stories about the earthquake in Christchurch. It seemed only like a few weeks ago when they had that Saturday earthquake which trashed the botanic gardens and some gorgeous old buildings there but amazingly no one was killed. Guess that the timing is everything
Even the cathedral turned out not to be safe.
Was in Christchurch with the ma for four or five days in February 2003 and associated the place with the train station from hell, lots of churches and beautiful gardens, pot holed and ramshackle roads and the post office near the cathedral with all those gorgeous "Lord of the Rings" stamps and post cards.
It was the city where they had sold off the train station in the city centre to developers in order to make a quick buck and built a new one in the back of beyond with very limited access to buses or any other forms of public transport. The taxi which seemed to take ages went past the Grand Chanceller hotel - vaguely remember there was a pool and palm trees. It was boom time for tourism back then.
Was so so looking forward to doing the Tranzalpine train journey but those plans got scuttled on discovering just how difficult it was to get to the station
The developers built a cinema and shopping centre on the spot where the train station used to be. There are a lot of pictures of collapsed buildings but very few maps so it is hard to join the dots from what we saw some seven years ago
It seemed so random who lived and who died. One woman decided to answer an email instead of going out for a cigarette. In this particular case this choice saved her life but for others it worked the other way around especially those who had just started at the mining company building
The earthquake is a very big story here in Oz as there is such a close connection between the two countries. Apparently the Kiwis refer to Oz as the "West Island" which Izzie thinks is just gorgeous
It's certainly pushed poor old crazy Colonel Gaddafi off the front pages. Even without understanding a word of Arabic - just listening to the critter on the radio without looking at his bitter and twisted facial expressions - the guy has gone totally nuts. Nothing like absolute power for decades to warp one's sense of reality.
It was almost like listening to Hitler's rabble rousing war speeches
Wondering if the Saudis will offer asylum to Gaddafi like they have to every other tin pot dictator on the planet. Here's hoping that they are next. They seem to think it too as they are out there offering freebies to the folks to keep them fat and happy
Wondering who the US military will sell their toys to now that all their most reliable big spending customers are dropping off their perches.
Looks like its time to find a new evil enemy as with a bit of luck the Mullahs and their mob will also soon be a bunch of has beens. Like those poor old priests in Ireland
Now that's a place that's also entertaining. Everything seems to be falling apart. The serpent just slinks along the fence and watches with amusement at the antics of the crazy humans