Vale Donna Summer aged 63

From the 70s.

Love to Love You

Don't laugh too much at the dance troupe...

A Christmas tragedy

When you hear something like this on the news you think "Poor buggers." And wonder what happened.

Suspicion falls on Christmas lights.

I watch Ready, Steady, Cook! when I am at home and in front of the television, so I am familiar with the chefs who appear on the program.

I don't know what to say, except I hope that Matt is OK, whatever happens.

Vale Cpl. Richard Atkinson

Greater love hath no man.

Sudden unexpected and unexplained death

Sudden unexplained deaths happen.

A friend of mine many years ago, she had a handcrafts shop in Kitchener Parade, Bankstown, lost a son in his mid 20s in the 1980s. There was no evidence of foul play nor any drugs or anything which would cause the death.

I suspect it was a medical condition like long QT syndrome.

A fly on the wall where one is decidedly unwelcome

I caught this conversation hour with Richard Fidler on ABC today and found it very interesting. I didn't hear it all, but what I did hear was fascinating..

Tom Jokinen, a Canadian journalist who was curious about the huge industry surrounding death decided to leave his job and work for a year in an undertakers....

Audio here. (No transcript.)

Heard today -bloody hell, I don't believe this!

WTF?

TONY EASTLEY: A leading workplace health and safety lawyer says homeowners will soon be facing a possible six year jail sentence if a worker is injured or killed on their properties.

The warning comes as a Sydney homeowner faces a $70,000 compensation bill for the death of an electrician working on his home.

I caught this on the radio thismorning. All I could think was "WTF?".

ASHLEY HALL: The electrician Allan Harley was working on a terrace house in Sydney's inner-west in 2004, when he came into contact with a live wire and was electrocuted.

The New South Wales District Court last week ordered the owner of the home to pay Mr Harley's widow $70,000 in compensation.

I was just stunned. Then we learnt more about the case. The home owner had an old hot water service taken out and supposedly was aware there were live wires in the ceiling. Hmmm. Okay.

The owner of the house had a duty of care.

Fair enough.

ASHLEY HALL: So that means that home owners are required, essentially to check the work of any tradespeople that come through and make sure that they don't leave anything dangerous?

MICHAEL TOOMA: In effect it does mean that people have to take reasonable care to make sure that whatever they ask a tradesperson to do is safe for them to do. That requires a bit of vigilance on their part when they are commissioning work.

ASHLEY HALL: If all goes to plan, from 2012, the liability that flows when someone is hurt while working on your home will become criminal.

It's the result of an attempt to harmonise the states' occupational health and safety laws.

And again, I say WTF?

But look here:

ASHLEY HALL: Michael Tooma says people should be especially vigilant to make sure their home is safe if they've recently had ceiling insulation installed under the Federal Government's bungled scheme.

MICHAEL TOOMA: And that is precisely the sort of situation where you would want to go back and have another look at the work that has been done and make sure that your home is safe for you and your family importantly and I think, I think certainly the insulation scheme debacle has given people a wakeup call as to the sort of things that could happen when shonky work goes on in your home.

This really takes the cake:

MICHAEL TOOMA: The fact that they are doing work at a home makes the home for that period a workplace. It means that the people at that workplace have a duty to that workman. In effect, if they are negligent in relation to the workman who is doing the work, well they would be in breach of that duty and that duty is a statutory duty that creates a criminal offence, attracting penalties of up to $300,000 and/or six years imprisonment in a really serious case.

How is Joe (or Josephine) Ordinary expected to know that a tradesman they've employed hasn't left some dangerous thing somewhere on their property? What about the dodgy roof insulation (which was mentioned earlier in the interview).

Isn't that why you employ a tradesman in the first place?

Read it here.

Plan D - updated II

Plan A (Photos)

Plan B

Plan C

Straight to Plan D.

Okay, Plan D was the plan I didn't want to adopt. It's D for 'Do It Yourself'.

I put the sprinkler on the ground inside an upside-down large plant pot and ran it for 5 hours last night. This morning, I dug a little out of the hole, about 10 inches or so. Filled that up with water twice and let it sink in. The day was hot and humid, but overcast most of the day, so I could do some digging.

The top layer is dark garden soil, the earth under is sandstone and sandy soil fill from when the house was built, we had an extra large pad out the back because we knew we'd want to do things with it like build a shed and a pergola and it would be way too dear to do after the house was built. I could sit the crow bar on the bottom of the hole and just push it down with the palm of my hand, mind you, the undisturbed ground is like a rock, no matter how much you soak it, so I'm pretty lucky.

Bundy's right beside his sister, Katie (Katey I've been spellin erratically lately), and close by 48.

I asked my neighbour across the street to check out the grave and see if it was big enough. He was most impressed! He said to just straighten out the sides and make it a bit wider and that would be deep enough. (He couldn't help me, he's got back problems, and he's in his mid 70s.)

When I'd done that (mind you, it takes a while when you're melting and your shoulders are screaming!), I dragged the black bag into the two-wheel wheel barrow and trundled it around the back. By this stage it was twice as big as it was when I brought it home, and it was beginning to emit a rather strong pong. I wanted to let Bundy out of the black bag before I buried him, so I needed a knife to slash the black bag.

I scrounged around the Ladies' Tool Chest (bottom kitchen drawer), and found the stanley knife. I then pondered... I'd need help with this, I'd be hercing from the aroma. Who to get to help? The young fellow next door (about 30), had just got home with his boat, so I walked over there and asked for his help. He brought his two adorable little girls with him, they were all home alone, and he put Bundy in the hole for me. Then he helped me to fill it in. He was most impressed with the hole I'd dug, too. It only took ten minutes to finish up. I'll have to rake the dirt tomorrow because there's some we missed. That's if I can move tomorrow. The temperatures for all thie next week are supposed to be between 36C and 38C max and not under 20C min. Yuk.

I can feel a trip to the physio coming on. I hope I can get in tomorrow.

Update:

I forgot to mention these little bastards, which were in the hole and walking around where I was standing to dig. They got in my shoe and stung me, twice today. They have a nasty sting which can burn and sting for hours. An ice pack, or ice, will ease the pain.

Anyway, Floyd thought these visits from people were for him and was most put out when they left... he's a funny boy. So here's some pix of him for your enjoyment.

Still adorable.

Still way too smart!

Update II

Someone was a bit freaked out about the photos at the top of this post. I just wanted them there because I really didn't think I could do that, dig that deep. I had to and so I did. It has amazed me that I could dig that deep, though I did think that I was going to die somehow and just fall into the hole and that's where they'd find me after they noticed Bundy at the front door....

What do you say? (9:04PM)

Bundy is dying. Slowly, he's falling apart. Every day there's a change, he's slower. I doubt he'll make it to 16 years old, on about April 11 this year.

Sunday was very hot and humid (about 36C), and didn't cool down very much over night. He didn't eat Sunday night, he seemed to be concentrating on breathing, I fed him on Monday morning as it was cooler and he ate with a little effort.

He seemed to have perked up on Monday, it wasn't such a struggle for him. Monday was a stinker, 38C. When it cooled down just before the usual time I feed them and he seemed okay, it was just the heat knocking him around. He ate his dinner. There was the usual water gone from the water buckets.

Today, Tuesday, I had checked their water before I left home, I would only be gone for a few hours at work (more catching up), and so I thought the water would be fine. It was okay. When I went down to feed them at about 6pm the water wasn't as low as it should be on quite a warm day (it was only about 34C today). Bundy was standing panting, his nose was dry and it looked like he was dehydrated. I put his food down for him, he left it for a while. Quite a while. Then he munched a dog biscuit, and ate a little of it. I brought a bucket of water over for him to have a drink. He drank what seemed like a lot. Then he started 'herc-ing', he wobbled down the yard and I thought he was going to do a 'job', but he tossed the water.

The girl who clips him for me phoned today and left a message. When I hear from her I'll see if she can help me get him to the local vet tomorrow.

*** My friend, the lass who clips the dogs for me and has clipped them for years, was just on the phone. I've arranged for her to come over and we'll see if we can dig a grave for Bundy. Both of us are unfit and have problems with our backs/shoulders so it should be interesting. If we're successful and can make it deep enough we'll bring him home from the vet. She's going to help me take him to the vet, too.

I was thinking about this in the shower. I've been crying a bit tonight.

When I first moved here I got a job at the university, it was local. There was a lecturer there, a vet, very well respected and loved by all his students. I heard that he looked after pets for uni people. He looked after my dogs for many years - not that they needed much, just the initial desexing and then their annual shots, which he'd come to my home to administer and when 48 and then Katie needed to be euthenased he came to my home and took care of that, helping me to bury both the furry kids after they'd been seen to. (The graves had been dug, he helped carry them there and helped bury them.)

He was at the uni for many years. He was a respected member of staff and a leading light in the campus community. He was a warden in the Halls of Residence for years, too. A few years ago he retired (well, maybe about five years ago), and moved to Toowoomba. He would still take some classes each semester, specialising in animal parasites. In the last two years he and his wife retired to Bribie Island. Gone, but not forgotten. A kind and helpful man.

Late last year we heard terrible news of this Vet. He had been diagnosed with an inoperable, aggressive brain cancer. He had not taken it very well and was raging. Understandable.

I dearly want to write to him. To tell him how much he's helped me in looking after my pets. How much I appreciate all that he has done for me. The kind words, the help to bury my pets. To thank him.

But what do you say?

What do you say? II

L-R: Bundy, 48, Katie June 1994.


Katie, my sweetheart. She'd rather a pat than a feed.


Bundy and Meg c. 2004.


Bundy last year.


Floyd, the tearaway, racing around outside the dogyard, with Meg and Bundy trying to keep up!