What I found was the moon out in the late afternoon, a phenomenon that might happen on a regular basis, but this one of the few times I’ve seen it.
And it reminds me of something I was told a long time ago. Shoot for the moon. I never quite understood what the person meant, not until a long time later when I realised that I was being told nothing was impossible.
Had I ever achieved the impossible?
The thing is, each of us define what is possible and what is impossible ourselves, and is therefore different for every person. If you tell yourself it is impossible, then it requires a mind shift to get past that barrier.
But, the question still remains the same, did I achieve the impossible?
I never thought I’d write a book, or have it published. Some would say I still haven’t achieved that goal because I self published it on Amazon.
I think I achieved what I set out to do.
I never thought I’d get a university degree, but people had faith in me, and yes, I got it in the end.
I never thought, when I was younger, I would be a father, and sometimes I wonder whether it was worth it, but having grandchildren dispelled any perceived disappointment.
And what is on the impossible list now?
Not a lot. At my age, I don’t think it’s possible I will travel to the moon, nor afford to skirt the edge of space, as much as it would be amazing to look back at the planet.
I don’t think I’ll ever become a CEO, but then I don’t want to. Too much responsibility.
What’s left that is achievable?
Tracing my family history, and going back to where my ancestors came from, and, hopefully finding someone who was ‘famous’.
Does a rainy, cold, miserable sort of day usually reflect your mood?
It could be said the outlook is bleak, but from where I’m sitting, it might be more picturesque.
This photo was taken from the veranda of one of four cottages that have, one one side, a macadamia farm, and on the other, a valley with a small river running through it.
I’m told there is reasonably good fishing in the river.
But, on a good day, with blue skies and sunshine, the outlook is completely different.
This is the sort of place you go to do nothing, perhaps read a book, do a crossword, but nothing substantial.
We come here to wind down, and take several days to do it.
…
But, as for a story…
…
I have in mind a theme of a man on the run, from his past, his demons, and a very dangerous criminal.
Yes, it’s that old story of someone witnessing what they shouldn’t, and paying the price because they did.
Now, hiding out in the country, it’s only a matter of time before they are discovered.
I was poking around on the gallery on my phone and found this
It was the rear of the club house for a golf course that was adjacent to the resort we were staying at before COVID shut down the country and all travel.
It was a bleak day with rain falling from drizzle to a heavy shower, and I had to wonder what it would be like on a fine summer’s day.
The club house also had space for conventions and weddings, and I could imaging having the wedding in the rotunda as the the sun departed leaving behind shades of yellow, orange and red.
Having a fountain in the wedding photo would be so hard to take either.
Perhaps we could renew our vows one day in just such a location.
It’s a thought.
…
But as for a story…
…
It’s a bleak day with constant drizzle, the sort of day to fuel introspection.
A day to spend in front of a fire with a good book instead of chasing a white ball. The thing is, you never quite know when the weather is going to interfere with the best laid plans.
A week before, the forecast was for clear skies, and perfect blue skies.
Jake was going to meet up with some very influential people on the golf course to discuss business. It was not the sort of business that was conducted indoors, in a conference room, or an office.
But the weather was not going to play ball.
As the murky darkness dawned into a grey soggy morning with constant irritating drizzle, Jake was looking out the window of his room that overlooked the parkland when there was a knock on the door.
There was no way anyone was playing golf in this weather, so he was hoping it was his assistant with the alternate arrangements.
It was the assistant, but with a look of disappointment on her face.
“What news?” he asked.
“McDonald’s PA just called. He had a heart attack last night, and just died.”
On an early morning walk, I discovered the Brooklyn Diner, a small restaurant tucked away in a street not far from Columbus Circle, perhaps a piece of history from the American past.
After all, if you’re going to take in the sights, sounds, and food of a country what better way to do it than visiting what was once a tradition.
This one was called the Brooklyn Diner. It had a combination of booths and counter sit down, though the latter was not a very big space, so we opted for a booth.
The object of going to a Diner is the fact they serve traditional American food, which when you get past the hot dogs and hamburgers and fries, takes the form of turkey and chicken pot pies among a variety of other choices.
Still looking for a perfectly cooked turkey, something I’ve never been able to do myself, I opted for the Teadition Turkey Lunch, which the menu invitingly said was cooked especially at the diner and was succulent. I couldn’t wait.
We also ordered a hamburger, yes, yet another, and a chicken pot pie, on the basis the last one I had in Toronto was absolutely delicious (and cooked the same way since the mid-1930s)
While waiting we got to look at a slice of history belonging to another great American tradition, Baseball, a painting on the wall of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets field, long since gone from their home.
The Turnkey lunch looked like this
which didn’t seem to be much, and had this odd pasta slice on the plate, but the turkey was amazing and lived up to the menu description.
The Chicken Pot Pie looked like this
And looked a lot larger in reality than the photo shows.
But, sadly while it was not bad, it was a little dry, and could possibly do with using the more succulent thigh part of the chicken.
All of this was washed down by Long Island Ice Teas and Brooklyn Lager.
AS for the Diner experience, it’s definitely a 10 out of 10 for me.
I thought since it is Spring here, we could do with a breath of fresh air and colour that comes with the change if season
Living in Queensland, Winter never quite seems to be as cold as it is in the southern states, which are closer to Antarctica.
We have had a relatively mild winter this year and I didn’t have to light the fire once, though we did use the reverse cycle sir conditioning.
But, from now the temperature will be rising as well as the humidity and will hang around until April next year.
Normally this would mean that a large proportion of the population would be planning their summer holidays, but with Covid restrictions, we may not be allowed to leave our state, or only visit states that have no or few cases like us, and definitely no overseas travel.
For people who like to travel, this is a bitter pill to swallow, and especially so for all those retirees who have worked all their lives, and decided to wait until retirement to see their own country and the world at large.
To me, the adage ‘don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today’ seemed appropriate and we decided once the kids were old enough, we would travel far and wide while we could. It was a wise decision because neither of us are as agile as we used to be.
Seems we were the lucky ones.
Now we are content to see our own country which no doubt will be able to manage Covid to the extent that life might return to a form if normal sooner rather that later.
And if it doesn’t, then I have enough to amuse myself at home. I’m sure we are all familiar with the expression ‘spring cleaning’. We have decided to clean house, and do some renovating.
And it’s a surprise when cleaning out those cupboards, drawers, and boxes, the stuff you’ve accumulated over many, many years. Last I heard, we were taking about getting a large skip, so I suspect this culling is going to be savage.
But, just to be clear, no books will be thrown out!
After leaving Toronto, we just had enough time to have breakfast and get to the car, another sedan, just managing to fit everything in.
By now we have finally realized the booking agent at Flight Centre had made the wrong type of car bookings for us in Canada, and I will be waiting with interest what cars we get in New York.
We went to a special section of the airport where Air Canada planes depart for the USA, and where the customs and immigration were completed on the Canada side and we just walked out of the terminal into the USA.
The plane trip was undertaken in an Embraer 175, twinjet, a small plane with 27 rows of 2 x 2 in coach, the American equivalent to economy.
Today we are traveling from Toronto Pearson to Newark Airport, somewhere near New York, USA.
The flight, a relatively short one, was supposed to take 56 minutes flying time, but as we all know, that’s not usually where the problems lie.
Here is the flight’s running sheet:
Boarding completed at 12:08
Push back at 12:18
Advised of a 45-minute wait at 12:41, something is holding us up.
Engines are shut down and we are sitting on the tarmac somewhere within the airfield. Snacks are handed out.
Take off is at exactly 1:30 pm
Landed 2:40 pm after taking the long way to Newark. Follow the course tracker as we approached Newark was like watching a drunk wander home from the pub.
Taxied for 8 minutes only to discover our parking bay is still occupied, so waiting to see if it is a long or short wait.
We have been plagued with difficulties.
Engine shutdown, or so I thought, at 2:56 means we are in for a long wait for a gate. Turns out the engines were on slow idle so they could power the lights and air conditioning.
Here we sit on the tarmac at Newark airport and going nowhere. Other planes are seen to come and go.
A 3pm announcement, another 20-minute wait for a gate.
3:40 pm we can now go to our gate.
4:15 we exit the terminal and find the car, and set off for the hotel in New York
Suburban 7 seater, very sedate driver, didn’t go over 45mph. Finally, we get a car that fits us and our luggage.
As for the ride from the airport to the hotel…
We were picked up by a Chevrolet Suburban, driven by the most cautious driver in America. Hoping to get a glimpse of the US countryside on the way from Newark to the hotel, arriving after 4 and getting dark by 4:30, most of the drive was in the dark
As far as I could tell, after taking the Manhattan tunnel, we drove around the outside of the island till we reached the nearest street to our hotel. It took about 45 minutes but at least it was warm, comfortable and better than any limousine we’ve had so far.
And then the Manhattan club…
I can’t help but think on first sight that this was once a night club, you know, the type that existed in the 40s and 50s where it wasn’t a social crime to smoke and drink and then drive home though I suspect most of the customers those days had nearby apartments.
This is like so many roads off in what is known as the Gold Coast hinterland, that tract of land between the ocean and the mountain range that runs along the eastern side of the country, known as the Great Dividing Range.
This is the road that runs behind where friends of ours live, and runs on down into a valley where a river runs, and when the rains come down, floods.
It’s hard to imagine that a few hundred years ago all of this would have been tropical jungle, and intrepid explorers would be making their way north or west, just to see what was there.
I imagine in another 100 years, all of this will be gone, given over to housing, shopping malls, and factories, and anything that resembles country living will have been moved out to far beyond the mountain range and towards the what is called the ‘red’ centre.
Or over that time there is a reckoning with mother nature, and if there is, I know who I’d put my money on.
But, as for a story…
…
It was quite literally the road to nowhere.
You just had to follow it until it disintegrated into a dirt track, and then for another 20 miles before you finished up at a rusty gate attached to a dilapidated fence that surrounds the a house that was cleverly hidden behind a grove of trees, the only place I knew as home. We had no phones, no television or radio, no real contact with the outside world.
Until, one day, my fairy godmother came and rescued me.
Yes, it felt like that.
Little had I realized that there were any other people in our family, and it took until the death of my parents to find out I had grandparents, and a much larger extended family.
There had been, according to my father, no reason to leave. Or for anyone else to come, and the few that ventured to end of the road, found there was nothing to see, and no reason to stay.
For all intents and purposes we didn’t exist, and, oddly, I was content with that.
Until I decided to venture further afield, run into two people, a man and a woman, both of whom said they were related to my father, and ask me to take them back with them to meet my father,
A bad choice, but I didn’t know it at the time.
Not until my father ran them off at the point of the gun he always had with him.
He knew who they were, and it surprised me to see the change in him, from the strong silent type, to a man greatly afraid, though he would not tell me of what.
He just told me to lock myself in my room, and not to come out for anything.
I heard him leave, but not come back.
It took three days before I left that room, to find I was completely alone in the house. Outside, it was a different story. There, half way between the back door and the barn were the two people I’d brought home, both dead. A little further away were my parents, also dead.
And another man, who was leaning over my father.
I stopped when he looked up in my direction.
“You must be Jake.”
How did he know my name? I nodded, warily watching him in case I had to run.
He went from body to body, checking to see if they were still alive, then stood and turned around to look at me.
“Do you know what happened?”
“No.”
“Do you know who the other two are?”
I assumed he was referring to the visitors.
“No. The man said he was a relative, asked me to bring them here.”
“How did you…”
Escape? “My father told me to hide and not come out.” If this man was associated with the other two…
Perhaps he saw my trepidation.
“I’m a friend of your father’s, a policeman. You were supposed to be safe here.”
We were, until I brought the harbingers of death. “Not any more,” I said.
I have a passion for visiting transport museums, to see old trains, planes, buses, cars, even ships if it’s possible.
This has led to taking a number of voyages on the TSS Earnslaw in Queenstown, New Zealand.
Many, many, many years ago on Puffing Billy, a steam train in the Dandenongs, Victoria, Australia.
The steam train in Kingston, New Zealand, before it was closed down, but hopefully it will reopen sometime in the future.
The London Transport Museum in London England, which had a lot of buses.
The Workshops Railway Museum in Ipswich, Queensland, where once the many steam engines were built and maintained, and now had only a handful of engines remaining.
However, in the quest for finding and experiencing old transportation methods, we came across the Mary Valley Rattler, which runs out of Gympie, Queensland, Australia.
The ride begins in Gympie at the old Gympie Railway station, and as can be seen below, is one of the relics of the past, and, nothing like the new more modern stations. Thankfully.
If you’re going to have a vintage train, then you have to have a vintage station.
The Class of engine, seen below, is the C17, a superheated upgrade to the C16 it was based on, and first run in 1903. This particular engine was built in 1951, although the first of its type was seen in 1920 and the last of 227 made in 1953. It was the most popular of the steam engines used by Queensland Railways.
The C designation meant it had four driving axels and 17 was the diameter of the cylinder, 17 inches. It is also known as a 4-8-0 steam locomotive and nicknamed one of the “Brown Bombers” because of its livery, brown with green and red trimming.
Also, this engine was built in Maryborough, not far from Gympie by Walkers Limited, one of 138.
This photo was taken as the train returned from Amamoor, a trip that takes up to an hour.
The locomotive is detached from the carriages, then driven to the huge turntable to turn around for the return journey to Amamoor.
This is the locomotive heading down to the water station, and then taking on water. After that, it will switch lines, and reverse back to reconnect the carriages for the trip to Amamoor.
The carriages are completely restored and are extremely comfortable. It brings back, for me, many memories of riding in older trains in Melbourne when I was a child.
The trains, then, were called Red Rattlers.
This is the locomotive climbing one of the hilly parts of the line before crossing over the Mary River on a trestle bridge.
This is the engine at Amamoor near the picnic area where young children and excited parents and grandparents can get on the locomotive itself and look inside where the driver sits.
And, no, I didn’t volunteer to shovel coal.
This particular locomotive spent most of its working life between Townsville and Mount Isa and was based in Cloncurry, Charters Towers, and Townsville, before being sent, at the end of its useful days in the late 1960s, to the Ipswich Railway Workshops.
Started to write a post, get so far, and another theme or idea slips in, and demands to be written first?
I’m on this nostalgia kick, simply because when I turned on the TV to catch up with the latest COVID news, it was on a channel that shows old movies.
In case you don’t realize it, I love old movies, not just those from Hollywood, but also from Britain.
What was on?
An American in Paris.
Well, it had to be one of my favorites, even though I’m not a great fan of Gene Kelly, the sheer majesty of the music more than makes up for the story in between.
Could it be said, then, this was from the golden years of Hollywood? Such bright and cheerful movies such as Singing in the Rain, and An American in Paris, perhaps exemplify the Hollywood musical.
Years before, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were the quintessential musical stars, followed by the likes of Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin, and later Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. A couple of musicals, in particular, comes to mind, firstly the Wizard of Oz and then High Society.
Moving forward to more modern times, several stand out in the1960s, My Fair Lady and Sound of Music. By this time theatergoers were dining on the superb talents of Rogers and Hammerstein, and Learner and Lowe. Of the former, musicals such as Carousel, South Pacific, and The King and I were on my list of favorites.
Even later still in the 1970s, there is Funny Girl, and Hello Dolly, which has a connection to the past with its director, none other than, yes, Gene Kelly.
But it seems once the 60s had passed the notion of the Hollywood blockbuster musical had gone, and we were left with clip shows like That’s Entertainment, put together while Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire were still alive. WE still had the film versions of the stage plays, but the lustre had, somehow, gone.
Perhaps it will return, who knows, after all, everything old is usually new again, it just takes time to go full circle.
We have been to this palace several times, the last being with our granddaughters.
Anyone can take a photo of the front door, I think I have done one better, and taken a picture of the back door, hidden behind an ice cream vendor.
Excellent security measures in place!
But after visiting the palace for as long as the children could retain interest, which was beginning to wane after an hour or so, we came out to go to the Orangery and see if we could treat them to afternoon tea.
The Orangery is at the end of this walkway. More on this experience below.
Moving on…
It was a few minutes looking at round trees and squirrels which seemed to be in abundance. Maybe the squirrels were being spoiled by eating leftovers from the Orangery.
But the gardens beckoned.
Lots of green and color. This was in winter so the sun was a bonus.
We were expecting snow, but no such luck!
Not even the pond was frozen over.
Such was the good weather in the middle of winter, a great many people turned out to bask in what little sun there was.
Don’t worry, the next day it started raining again, and didn’t end till we left.
But, there’s only so much sun one can handle in London, and we were getting hungry. Whilst not expecting it would be available, or the girls would actually like cucumber sandwiches, we were hoping for them to, at the very least, have a new culinary experience.
As for us, we have a quest of sorts, depending on which country we’re in, and in London, it is a quest to find new places to have high tea as we had exhausted the favorites like Selfridges, Harrods, and Fortnum and Mason.
We had our fingers crossed.
There are a number of stops on the tour bus, you know the one, or two, with the word Highlights in its name. It’s easier to get on one of these than try to navigate your own way around, and it took us to Kensington Palace.
The weather had improved, we were hoping it would be one of those days with a surprise or two left in it.
We saw this white building tucked away near Kensington Palace and after doing the regulation tour we were up for a cup of tea and a cake.
Instead, we found they had High Tea and that was it.
The English seem to have a knack for pulling off some of the best sandwiches, particularly those of the cucumber variety, and definitely my absolute favorite.
Here we had the Queen’s tea.
In fact, at each of the establishments mentioned above, we had their signature tea, served in fine bone china cups.
Ah, what it must have been like in the olden days of the British Empire!
