March 2012

buns

In all the time I lived in England I’m sure I never came across the words Brumby, Brumbies or Brumby’s. But we have the word here in Australia, so what does it mean? I know, let’s turn this one into a quiz. So, what does it mean? a) it’s the name of a bread shop. [...]

Cup

Last Saturday morning my young daughter, Elizabeth, played her first competitive team sport, netball. She really loved it and throughout the game the girls rotated positions. In the 12 minutes Elizabeth played as an attacker, she scored two goals. Or are they called nets or something? She is already looking forward to next week’s game. [...]

BobinOz

If I recall correctly, back in the UK elections were always held on Thursday. Here, in Queensland, we went to the polls on Saturday to decide who will govern this state for the next term. So, on Saturday BobinOz proudly cast his first ever Australian vote….. But who did I vote for? And did I [...]

Here’s a roundup of this week’s news and weather here in Australia. At the beginning of this week, tropical cyclone Lua smashed its way through north west Western Australia. The cyclone, which at one stage reached category four, hit wind speeds of up to 250 km/h. Luckily, it didn’t cause a lot of damage. For [...]

splash

Time for me to catch up on another reprint of my Australia and New Zealand magazine articles; this one appeared, rather ironically, in their winter edition. Now it is being added to my blog just about a few weeks before we will probably be closing down the pool for the colder months here. Great timing [...]

tomatoes

Actually, there are two problems. Here is the first. It rains, and then it’s sunny. It rains and then it’s sunny again. And then it rains again, then it’s sunny again. This weather pattern kind of repeats itself around these parts quite regularly. When it rains, it rains hard. When it’s sunny, it’s really hot [...]

Those of you who read my post about swimming pool fence laws here in Queensland will know that I’m not keen on some of the nanny state laws here in Australia. Well, a new nanny law kicks in on December 1 this year, and this one has really got me in two minds. Why? Because [...]

House

It’s been awhile since I last talk about Australian house prices and compared them to those in the UK; I’m surely due to do that again, but not now. When I have talked about it previously, I have suggested that Australia doesn’t really do house price crashes or the “boom and bust” stuff so common [...]