As a child, we spent our Christmas holidays at a remote coastal sheep farm in New Zealand.
The car would be loaded up with camping gear and we would head off on the long drive to spend 2 weeks of fishing, mucking around in the shearing shed, hiking across the paddocks and exploring the rock pools at low tide.
Our Aunts and Uncles would already be there and our cousins would be smug that they had already scanned out the best places to build forts, swim and generally get into mischief.
Read more: The Good Old Days... I remember when....
I had this incredible article ready to put up today and all of a sudden, one of my commenters put up a comment that stirred a lot of interest., It was about the kids that are currently protesting about freeing Palestine and, oh, I don't know, saving the planet and making sure that BLM matters, LGBTQ matters and all letters of the alphabet matter
But, like that character from Sesame Street all those years ago who told us that the letter or number of the day is - well, today, I want to talk about the letter W.
And we all know what W stands for, don't we?
Some of you might think it stands for White. Or Woke?
But I say, could it possibly stand for Work?
There is definitely something very wrong with the world when farmers can’t even sell milk unless they agree to be exploited or worse - buy into the game if they don’t play by the rules.You do wonder why they would even need to worry about a small producer like this.It was heartening to read that many did support them and held their ground despite the pressure applied. One more small Australian farmer crippled by big business.I read a post on social media and it broke my heart and filled me with rage, all at the same time.
Read more: Another one bites the dust - Milking the Farmers Dry
Our American friends will be celebrating their Thanksgiving Day and they have a lot to be thankful for, a truly wonderful President-Elect, a Country about to gather strength and make American Great again..... Again.
Thanksgiving, the day Americans stop and give thanks for the great gift they have in their country. along with the reason Thanksgiving is celebrated in the first place. So let us go back in time to when it all started...
When the first settlers arrived on the Mayflower in 1620 at Plymouth , they had hopes and dreams to found a Nation free of Religious persecution and constraints of the then King of England, King James I.
Their voyage was funded by The London Group of Merchant Adventurers.
They were bound for Virginia, but, due to stormy weather, they instead were forced to anchor in what is now Provincetown Harbour, Massachusetts. On November 11th, 1620, their intent was spelled out in the document known as the Mayflower Compact; written and signed by the passengers on board. This document laid out a basic form of life rules that would bind them. An exploration party set forth to find a suitable place to create a new settlement and the settlers remained on board to suffer the scourge of disease.
Margaret Sanger (referred to as Margaret) was born in New York, US, on September 14, 1879 to Michael Higgins (Higgins) and Anne Purcell (Purcell). Her parents were Irish-born Catholics whose parents had emigrated from Ireland during the Potato Famine of the mid-1800s—the Higgins family to Canada and the Purcell family to the US.
As a youth, Higgins crossed the border to the US. and served as a Union soldier in the Civil War. He never returned to Canada, which was disliked by the Irish because of its ties to Britain.
It has been a good many years since I read " Crime and Punishment " by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
It is essentially the story of a man who does something terrible, lives to regret it and how WE, as humans, are ultimately responsible for how we live our lives. We may seek redemption but we cannot turn the clock back and undo what one has done.
All we can do is live with the consequences, try not to repeat our mistakes and hope like hell that those around us cut us some slack if we rectify our behaviour and start being productive members of society.
Certainly, our leaders who advocated for vaccines, masks, lockdowns and social destruction don't seem to be doing a damn thing about ensuring that they do not repeat their mistakes. The problem is that WE have to live with THEIR mistakes. And they are still hell-bent on repeating them.
Read more: Crime and punishment - It's all a bit grey these days
Comedy. The Last Frontier.
The Marshalls have moved in. The posses are out in force. The lynch mobs are around every piece of tumbleweed, ambush alley or Acme shed.
No one is safe from the hanging tree if you are white, heterosexual, conservative and can still have a laugh. Hell, even the black conservatives are in the firing line.
In a world where political correctness tiptoes on eggshells, navigating the fine line between being offended and being offensive has become an art form.
All I can say is no wonder the chicken crossed the road. She hoped it would be safer on the other side. Only it isn't. Because to get to the other side means you have to cross a highway of laws, hate speech accusations and lawsuits. The poor chicken rarely makes it. And, if she does, she is roasted for giving a cluck.
Every joke these days is reported to a moderator on social media because someone was offended. It seems to me that to laugh these days, is offensive.
Read more: Humour - Has Comedy Become Tragically Unfunny These Days?
I have always been fascinated by lighthouses. The power of a man-made structure standing as a guardian to shield us from the fury and power of the sea.
Though, these days, we seem to need men to stand as guardians to shield us from the fury and power of our fellow man and government.
It struck me that when we confront problems head on, we find solutions. Ignoring the incoming storm does not make it go away.
Without a light to guide us during the tempest, we are doomed to a life in darkness and perpetual fear of being drowned by a tempest that seems to be building by the day.
Read more: We ignored the Lighthouses and the Umbrellas aren't Working
Speckled about the steep slopes are clumps of small, fieldstone cottages. Their crumbling mortar and aging stones are victim to the ravages of time. Sprawling green meadows, vivid and fertile lay terraced and latticed-worked with pastel pinks and blues of the prolific hydrangeas which form hedgerows and borders.
Throughout the town streets are narrow, they dart willy-nilly between tall houses. The hooves of a horse resound as it gently picks its way over dark cobblestones polished to a sheen by countless feet before. Upon its weary back and mounted side-saddle an old man journeys.
Although late summer the air is already crisp as it transports and mingles the salty tang of sea and other heady aromas that give a hint to the freshly made cheese and bread still browning in the ovens. This, somehow, remains commonplace to the people of the Azores.
We have women who are supposedly running our different States, countries and active in our governments. .
Once upon a time that would have been done with responsibility and efficiency and with dignity . There are some very capable and excellent ladies but, we are being let down, because some of the women seem to do is make poor decisions and certainly not do what is best for the people they are supposed to represent. We have two choices , get rid of them and find some Margaret Thatcher ladies or try and find some Gentlemen who have some guts to put to right so many wrongs.
Read more: When Men and Women are no longer Ladies and Gentlemen
When I was a young girl, I wanted to be beautiful. Clever. Successful.
Oh to be pretty. To be as wonderful as my mother. To marry a man as great as my Dad. To meet a boy as strong as my older brothers.
I have to wonder what young children grow up to aspire to be in today's age of confusion, gender politics and exaggerated fake body parts?
The first time I thought of myself as an " emerging woman " as opposed to a girl was when I saw the movie " Dr No " with Ursula Andress emerging out of the water to a rather gorgeous James Bond played by Sean Connery.
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