I’ve been in Melbourne this week, at the World Congess of Cardiology.

Melbourne was cold and windy, as you might expect.  There are some mitigating features: trams, passenger trains hauled by locomotives (even if they are all Diesels), and I was once again struck by how much room and space there appears to be in near-Central Melbourne, compared with Sydney.

However there is also the casino.  This is truly horrible.  As well as the casino itself, there are at least four huge self-proclaimed luxury hotels attached to them, and they are all glitzy and to my mind deeply unattractive.  Even if you like “glitz and glam”, the concept of exploiting people’s complete lack of sense is morally dubious, to say the least.  No-one who has the slightest appreciation of the arithmetic of statistics can fail to understand that casinos or poker machines (aka One-armed Bandits) are a simple way for owners of casinos or clubs to make huge amounts of money from the gullible public.  The whole industry that has been allowed to grow up around this exploitation is appalling.  I understand that ideologically people should be allowed to make their own choices.  Nevertheless this transfer of wealth from the poor (who do most of the gambling) to the rich (who own the clubs and gambling houses), without even a decent amount of government taxation to reclaim some of the revenue to the state is definitely a case for government intervention.

The conference was good.

It is a lovely autumn morning here in Mount Riverview.  Easter Friday, in fact, and so it is very quiet also: much less movement.  Almost no sound except the birds in the bush.

The sun was shining in almost horizontally as I entered the Middle Room.  So I went out with the camera into the back garden.

Cockatoos screeching, rozellas piping, kookaburras laughing.  it was lovely and quiet (!)

A couple of pictures looking back up at the house:

When I went around to the front, the garage doors were open.  We had to get different coloured cars, so that we could tell them apart ….

Actually not so really: one is Diesel-powered, the other petrol-powered, and they are quite different to drive.  Andrew and Nick both drive the Diesel more, and much prefer it – I think it is easier to drive at low speeds around the town, because it has so much more power (torque?) at low engine speeds.  Better for learner-drivers like Andrew, certainly.

Hmmmm.

Nick has been a medical student for a few weeks now.  This has had numerous expected and unexpected consequences.  As a result of him being a student at UWS in Campelltown, he has to drive about 3/4 of an hour to get there.  Public transport is not really an option: he’d have to go Blaxland-to-Granville (about an hour) then Granville-to-Cambelltown (also about an hour).  So he has been taking the blue Polo.  For his first two weeks at Uni., I rode to work every day, and decided to make a virtue out of necessity by setting myself a challenge.   All ten working days I rode on my bicycle all the way up the Old Bathurst Road without getting off!

However the consequence of Nick having to drive to work was this:

Yes our diesel Polo is blue.

Nick driving the new Polo

I decided that we had to have a third car.  Nick can use the diesel Polo (about 5.1 litres/100km) whilst I will part-time drive to the hospital in the new car.  I looked at a Hyundai, a Subaru, etc., but VW had a special deal on the Polo, so we bought the cheapest Polo that you can get in Aus.: a 1.4litre petrol-powered one.  It still drives nicely and is nice and quiet.

Just for amusement Nick took it to Uni., and one of his friends said “I could have sworn that your car was blue ….”

What is more important is that Nick seems to have settled down well.  There’s a lot of work, and it’s very different from school, but he seems to be coping OK.  There’s a lot else going on, and he is making the most of it, I think, which is good also.

We have, this year, nearly had all the family together for Christmas: in early December the two “uncles” were in NSW [Mark and John], seen here in the courtyard at 33 Blackbutt Circle.

This meant  that all five of the male Coulsheds who feature regularly on this website were together for the first time in several years.

We had a form of Christmas Dinner together, using the Royal Worcester Evesham dining set that had been collected by Olive Coulshed in Liverpool, and now is kept in Australia!

However the real Christmas Dinner was held with the Nicklin Grandparents, on Christmas Day – although we used the Evesham on this occasion also.

This has also been the season for birthdays, of course.  Andrew’s was first.  Here he is, lighting all the 16 candles, with a catering blowtorch (of course).

Nick’s was a larger party.  Not surprising, given that it was his 18th Birthday Party.

We are lucky: our house, especially the “Middle Room”, is just made for entertaining!

There have been lots of bushfires in NSW recently, including one which could have come right up to our house.  Fortunately it did not, and the danger is now largely passed.

In fact we are well-prepared, with a system set up with a pump to spread water through a sprinkling system all over the house.  We have worked out what to take if the fires really require an evacuation, and we have put shutters over the more exposed windows.  The pump would be set going and left going after we drove away.

Firemen in the back garden doing the “hazard reduction burn”

Four days ago the wind was strong, and could have blown the fire in our direction.  Since then there has been relatively little wind, and the local fire service has undertaken a “hazard reduction burn”, which means they set a fire going, with lots of firemen around to control it.  They have largely burned away the undergrowth and leaf-litter around our valley (the valley behind our house).

Fire below our pool area

This will greatly reduce the likelihood of a wildfire reaching our house, so it is really good news.

Fire (deliberate) in our neighbour’s back garden

These images were taken on the day of the “controlled” (!) burn, and the day after, to show the effects.

Burning log in back garden towards the end of the “controlled” burn

David talking to the Al-Jazeera reporter and camera-man, in our back garden

Sue and I were approached by a reporter/presenter from Al-Jazeera – the 24-hour news channel run from the UAE.  Sue gave a “live feed” intereview, and they recorded a short segment for a later broadcast.  It’s on their site, so here is the link: …………………………………………………..
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1659202292001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAmtVJIFk~,TVGOQ5ZTwJbsT0Mq3k9H8GCa4jV3vL4M&bclid=0&bctid=2753736595001

The two people in the “crew” spent several hours on their Apple Mac-Books at our dining table after taking the film, editing it all to make just a 2 min. “clip”.

After the controlled burn

This picture shows the area of bush just below our garden the following day.

The area of bushland looks devastated, but it isn’t as bad as after a spontaneous bushfire, because the trees above about 3m aren’t burned.