Thoughts & Walks

Newcastle & Sydney; North & South

Another photo of Newcastle Nobby's Head in the autumn. We have the current weather conditions on the sidebar - warm and sunny. It felt hotter than 24 degrees out on the breakwater this morning. In essence, this blog started as a "place blog" almost four years ago. The motive was to encourage people to look at Newcastle as a place worthy of a visit as opposed to an industrial city. ("Dirty, smokey place" to quote Fanny Thornton, N&S). For visitors to this blog, I should explain that Newcastle has always been the sort of place that is looked down upon by Sydney siders most of whom bypass it when driving to points further north. It was best known for its coal loader, once a manufacturing site for steel (until they shut down BHP) and port. Unions were strong and it is a safe Labor seat politically. We do however also have beaches, vineyards and national parks nearby so we are not totally hemmed in by industry....although industry was, and still is part of Newcastle life. I still remember arriving here as a raw young physiotherapist applying ultrasound to the back of a miner. The aquasonic gel (light blue) used with the ultrasound head became black from the coal dust that had become impregnated into the pores of his skin. The old miner used to call me a "silvertail" because I had come from a leafy part of Sydney with no real experience of the true working class ethos.

How am I going to link this in to may last post? Well, Newcastle has been described as a manufacturing city and represents "200 years of working class heritage". Read more here. I've just been enjoying the BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. I have linked to the BBC website for this drama and also here to the page at the RAonline website which is extremely good. I can't help finding a few albeit vague similarities to Margaret Hale in terms of my own journey of moving from a middle class leafy Sydney suburb to working class smoggy, (in those days), Newcastle. I remember washing the coal dust off the window sills every couple of days when I first arrived. Our roof space had 5 cm of accumulated coal dust in it. You learnt to hide the fact that you came from Sydney's northern suburbs - the divide in wealth between the workers and the business owners was significant. After many years of living here however, the place grows on you and I have certainly found myself defending Newcastle to Sydney people on more than several occasions. I still love to visit Sydney but I don't think I could ever go back to live there. Amazing how watching one BBC drama can make you reflect on your own story. If it hadn't been for visiting the RichardArmitageOnline website I don't think I would ever have seen the production. (NB: That's the actor, not the US politician).

Thanks also to Angela who visited this blog and left a comment about the messages from RA the actor, I mentioned in the last post. I'd love to think he does write those messages to his fans - certainly that earlier posting to the BBC board must have shocked the posters albeit a welcome "shock"...it's not something I would expect to happen however. I'm very happy to be corrected on this and welcome more discussion but how do they (RAOnline and AA) know they are really from him??? Is there a code perhaps?

Saturday swimming

In a fit of "misguided benevolence", I volunteered some months ago to get into the water with one of my five year old clients who is blind, this Saturday. It is his first ever swimming carnival and he is allowed to use a noodle or kickboard with assistance in a 15metre event (four 15 metre events to be precise!). Little did I know that it would be SO cold! I am therefore dusting off my wetsuit and whatever waterproof clothing I can find in my wardrobe in order to yet again submerge myself in cold water. I hope it is not too cold for my client and he enjoys himself...fingers crossed.

Last day of Winter

Tomorrow is the first day of spring and it is getting lighter in the mornings. My peaceful morning walk along Nobby's Breakwater is no longer in the dark and I am able to watch the sunrise. Grumpy Old Woman that I am, I quite like the morning quiet when I am alone and serenaded by the dawn chorus of birds, but as it grows lighter and warmer, the regular walkers grow in numbers. It is great to meet people on the way and wish them good morning, but there will come a time very soon when our peace will be shattered by the summer walkers who insist on walking in groups...their loud talking and piercing laughter (and HORROR..mobile phones) cutting through the dawn peace like a knife. Grumpy Old woman? Yes, unfortunately I really can identify with the women in that show.

Small Steps

Two years of fortnightly visits, three hours of driving...wondering if the child I am going to see will be awake, will be screaming and rocking on his back.... Two years of waiting for a glimpse of the little boy I know is there, behind the blindness, the behaviours and the distress. Arriving today, I wonder what I will encounter.... He is there, sitting upright, head slightly tilted to listen for our voices. I sit down beside him and talk softly..he turns, holds onto my shoulders and stands. "Will you walk with me?" I say to him. "Will you show me your bedroom?"....and then as I move backwards holding his hands he takes a step and then another.....first steps after two years of perseverance. The first steps enabling a glimpse into the future and independence....

In the Garden

This week, I managed to get all my reports and progress notes done on Friday and Saturday leaving time today to do some pottering. The weather is becoming warmer so I decided to get stuck into our neglected garden. I mowed, learnt how to use the electric edger (a bit scary when I struck concrete and sparks flew), and weeded. One garden bed was so full of grass I had to resort to the pitchfork to loosen the soil. I can't understand why grass seems to grow better in garden beds then in lawn. As a consequence, I am aching from head to foot but particularly in my thumb, wrist and finger joints...arthritis in my hands is a legacy of my manual physiotherapy career.

I still have a lot of weeding left to do....the side of the house we never see is paved but the weeds have grown in between the pavers...and then there is that nasty bit behind the garage (the part where old bricks, bits of wood, old branches are stored prior to taking a load to the rubbish dump...unfortunately out of sight is out of mind and this kind of rubbish stays where it is for months making good homes for redbacks and other equally unfriendly creatures).

I am sure our existing plants need attending to and I am hoping that once I clear the garden beds of weeds, I will have enough motivation to actually plant something. I did buy two long planters and a bag of potting mix this morning. My aim is to plant seeds in the pots and use a watering can to water them as opposed to a hose. Water I suspect will be scarce this summer and I am trying to think of ideas to balance water conservation and garden needs. I wonder if a potted garden is the way to go? My sister conserves her washing up water and throws it on her potted garden saying that it keeps the bugs away.

For anyone interested in what to do in the Aussie garden at this time of year, I discovered a website called Global Garden which has a huge "to do" list for this month.

River Parrett, Somerset

When England was playing Portugal in the World Cup soccer, I was walking along the River Parrett Trail pictured above. Needless to say there was no one about and we had the place virtually to ourselves apart from some travellers who had their ponies tethered beside their vans not far from here (I felt it would have been an invasion of their privacy to take a photo). The trail follows the river for some miles but we stopped at Muchelney Abbey, the first of the abbeys we visited on this trip. Everytime I see a ruined abbey in England I can't help thinking what a vandal Henry VIII was. Apart from the more modest abbey on Lindisfarne, most of the abbeys we saw must have been incredibly grand prior to the Dissolution. One can only imagine what they must have looked like intact.

Return to blogdom

As an icebreaker and reintroduction to blogging, I thought I would publish this photo from the Great Yorks Show to which my Vet Surgeon sister took me and I loved! Pica over at Feathers of Hope inspired me back into blogging (in fact she got me into it in the first place) by writing a post on the Yolo County Fair here. Well, Pica and Numenius, I can identify with the odours. The pig judging however was totally amazing - I have never seen anything like it in my life. Pigs behaving badly and judges wearing bowler hats and kilts!

Cat on the mat

I've been wanting to buy a rug to go in front of our fireplace (installed last winter) for some months now. Today I found one that was just right (and at a good price) - naturally the first person in our family to try it out was the cat who wasted no time installing himself in front of the fire as soon as I had the rug out of its packaging.It's very rainy and cool here at the moment. Geoff is in Sydney at a course. As you can see from the photo, our table is littered with books - my own attempt to read up on classification prior to heading over to England to do the actual IPC course. Only one month and two days before I go!! Pica, if you read this post...I discovered that my visit over to the northern hemisphere coincides with the OR 1976 group's reunion in Madrid....but I will not be gate crashing!

Miners

8 days ago three miners were underground at Beaconsfield when an earthquake hit causing the tunnel they were in to cave in. Miraculously, two miners have survived and are still trapped underground. You can ead about the story here. Keep watching the news to see if they make it out.

Blog against disablism day - May 1st

Scenario one: X had sustained a spinal cord injury when he was in his 60's resulting in complete paraplegia. He had put on some weight over the years and felt he would like to try to learn to swim again for fitness and weight loss. With the help of his physio and a volunteer, he was able to access the local council pool and begin his lessons. It took him some time to learn to cope with his altered body dynamics in water but was soon lap swimming - the only difficulty for him was getting in and out of the water as he still did not have the strength in his arms to lift himself up over the edge and needed to use a hoist which took some time to operate. B was a swimming coach who coached elite level able bodied teenagers - he had ambitions of one day earning glory by coaching a swimmer onto an Australian team. He had booked the lanes for coaching his squad at 3.00pm. X was having such a great time swimming again after his accident, he lost all sense of time and realised that he needed to make preparations to exit the pool just before 3.00pm. He looked up towards the diving blocks and saw a large group of teenage swimmers staring at him. Before he was able to get to the hoist, coach B had given the orders for his lead swimmers to dive in over the top of X. He was still experiencing balance problems as a result of his paraplegia and found it extremely difficult to keep his head above the water as the elite squad dived over the top of him. The teenagers remaining on the side of the pool and the coach sniggered at his distress. "Serves that disabled man right for not getting out of our way" they muttered.
Scenario 2 E had cerebral palsy and required an electric wheelchair for independent mobility. For many years her mother had insisted that she attend swimming lessons and they travelled over an hour to get to the pool for lessons with a person who was prepared to teach her. The Swim Schools closer to her home refused to take her as she was "too disabled" in their opinion and they were not interested in having her unless she paid for an expensive private lesson which her mother could not afford. After many years she began to swim laps and started to compete. She watched swimmers who had less significant levels of disability at competitions walk past her and gain admission into the elite squads and the elite paralympic development squad. They were invited onto teams bound for overseas competition and she was left out. She could not understand why as she had achieved times that ranked her 3rd and 4th in the world for her own competition swimming level. She was unable to integrate into an able bodied squad with people her own age as her times were simply too slow but she was elite in her own right. She could get around in her electric chair but needed assistance for her personal care. The paralympic team would not take her for this reason as she could not keep up with swimmers who had less significant levels of disability (like her friend who had been born without a right hand) and they would have to pay for a personal care assistant if she was to be included on an overseas team.......much easier for the swimming officials to forget about her....
Scenario 3 Z has no functional vision. Each day he and his guide dog caught the train in to town to go to work. The State Government made the decision that the rail was too expensive to run and that they would close it down. Z joined a group of activists to lobby against the rail closure. He made an appointment with the Minister for Transport to discuss the problems he would face if they closed the rail line. The Minister for Transport sat across his desk from Z and asked him why he couldn't catch a bus to work. Z answered that he was blind and would be forced to flag down every bus he could hear going past him so that he could ask the driver which route it was travelling. Not only that but the bus stop was located six blocks away from his workplace and he would have to negotiate several blocks of outdoor eating areas with tables and chairs on the footpath to get there. The station on the other hand was located right next door to his workplace....

These are just three out of the many obstacles faced by people I know personally and who are attempting to lead a productive life in a society that is still ill equipped to support them. Bloggers, take up the challenge set down by Diary of a Goldfish and post about the injustices in our community that serve to make the life of a person who has a disability unnecessarily tough!