The start of the school year

Good morning world, yes it is still morning here in my part of the world, yesterday was the first day of school for the year. I had to take Leo it was also his first day at the new school and all went well once we got there. Although in the morning he didn't want to get dressed and didn't want to go and get into the car, had to fight with him to get dressed and Tim had to drag him out to the car but once we got to the school he was fine.

In the afternoon he said he had a good first day, and today there was not problem getting him to school, at the school he and I were sitting waiting for the bell to ring and a staff member came up and asked me if I was waiting to see someone, I said no I was just waiting with Leo for the bell to go and she asked Leo if he knew where the “resort” was this is the schools play area and he said no so she said she would take him and show him. He then said goodbye to me and went off with her.

Since they live closer to me now Jessica doesn't feel the need to hang out here between her morning and afternoon shifts although she was here yesterday all day sleeping on my lounge, today though she went back to her place so I am home alone and enjoying the peace and quiet.

Natasha and I have decided that on Tuesday's I will pick Blain up from school and bring him back here and take him to school on Wednesday morning and she will pick up Leo and take him to school on Wednesdays. Natasha has also agreed to take Leo to school on Fridays after she drops Blain off as Fridays are my busy day and this will help me out a lot and yes some weeks Leo may be 5 minutes late to school but it is what it is and the school will just have to deal with it.

Yesterday it rained all day here and I had to park in the schools staff parking area when I took Leo to school, there is not a lot of parking at this school and it is on a main highway. Many people park on the grass area between the road and the footpath but I didn't want to do that in the rain as it was all wet and soggy. Also this school doesn't have disable parking which sucks, I don't have to leave as early to do get Leo but because there is bugga all parking I can't leave that late either.

Ok that is all I have for today, see you tomorrow for Five things Friday.

Wordless Wednesday

History of Australia Day

“How did Australia get its name?”

It seems such a basic Australian history question but it’s one that people often struggle to answer.

For the record, we can thank explorer Matthew Flinders for the naming of our continent.

Flinders was the first European to circumnavigate the country and produce an accurate map of the entire continent. He completed the map in 1804 while in prison on the island of Mauritius having been captured by the French on his return journey to England.

Across the centre of the map he wrote the word ‘Australia’. Until that point, Australia was known as New Holland and Terra Australis. It was the publication of Flinders’ work which generated the usage of the term Australia. New South Wales Governor Lachlan Macquarie recommended in 1817 that it be formally used and the British Admiralty officially approved the name in 1824.

Flinders’ original 1804 map is therefore Australia’s ‘birth certificate’.

The tradition of having Australia Day as a national holiday on 26 January is a recent one. Not until 1935 did all the Australian states and territories use that name to mark that date. Not until 1994 did they begin to celebrate Australia Day consistently as a public holiday on that date.

The tradition of noticing 26 January began early in the nineteenth century with Sydney almanacs referring to First Landing Day or Foundation Day. That was the day in 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the First Fleet of eleven convict ships from Great Britain and the first governor of New South Wales, arrived at Sydney Cove. The raising of the Union Jack there symbolised British occupation of the eastern half of the continent claimed by Captain James Cook on 22 August in 1770.

Some immigrants who prospered in Sydney, especially those who had been convicts or the sons of convicts, began marking the colony's beginnings with an anniversary dinner - 'an emancipist festival' to celebrate their love of the land they lived in. Governor Lachlan Macquarie, the emancipists' friend, made the thirtieth anniversary of the day in 1818 a public holiday, thirty guns counting out the years of British civilisation, a tradition Macquarie's successors continued.

In 1826 at the centre of the anniversary dinner, 'Australia' a new word for the continent, entered the list of toasts. The term, recommended in his Voyage to Terra Australis in 1814 by Matthew Flinders, the skilful circumnavigator of the continent in 1801-03, and proposed by Macquarie to a reluctant British government in 1817, was taken up in Australia, especially by emancipists. The most famous of them, William Charles Wentworth with a fellow barrister had established the colony's first uncensored newspaper, the Australian, in 1824.

So strongly did some emancipists feel about being Australian that the anniversary dinner in 1837 was for only the Australian-born. Wentworth, invited to chair the dinner, declined, disapproving of this new development. Having become a wealthy landowner and squatter, he found that he had more in common with his former enemies, the exclusives, than his supporters who pressed for wider rather than narrower voting rights in discussions about political reform. That year the celebration widened with the first Sydney Regatta, the beginning of a new tradition — one which still continues today. Five kinds of races, including one for whale boats, drew crowds to the shore of Sydney Harbour. 'It was', the official newspaper, the Sydney Gazette reported, 'a day entirely devoted to pleasure'.

Hey Hey it's Saturday no it's Sunday

Hey hey it's Saturday Sunday, yes I am a day late with this post, why well I will tell you, Tim is off work yesterday, today and tomorrow and because he had yesterday off he wanted to go shopping. I however, had to wait till after I had helped mum with something which I did and by 11ish we were out at the shops and when we got home Jessica and Leo and Blain were here, they stayed overnight too.

So because the boys were here and running amuck I decided to go and have a lay down for a couple of hours, I in fact only napped for an hour and a half then I came to write my blog post but first Jessica wanted me to order and go and pick up some pizza's which I did. I than of course had to eat said pizza.

Before I knew it, it was 6.10pm and mum was ringing, I talk to mum every night at 6.10pm and we talk for 20-40 minutes and it doesn't matter if I have spoken or seen mum half a dozen times during the day we still chat each night for 20-40 minutes.

While out we got the new air fryer out of layby, yes it is still in its box I will get it out later today, oh yeah since I have been up I have already peeled the veggies for lunch I am doing a baked lunch as it is Tim's birthday tomorrow and he loves his baked lunch. I asked him what type of meat he would like roast lamb or roast beef he said roast chicken bought cooked from Coles so that is what we are going to have.

Peeling the veggies early and leaving them in salted water till it is time to cook them makes me think of my nanna, I remember going to her place on Christmas morning for lunch and she would have all the veggies peeled and in sitting in the sink waiting to be cooked.

As I said Jessica and the boys spent last night here and she is still asleep on the lounge, yes she slept on the lounge last night and the boys slept on the spare mattress. Tim is also still in bed but me I have been up for an hour and a half dealing with the boys.

Ok back again had to go and find Leo some clothes and get his boots on so he could go outside to play, his mum said he can't play outside without shoes on and the only shoes he could find was his boots.

On another note on Friday my dad and my sister Sandra told me I am fat and that they are worried about me and I should try to lose some weight. I said I know I am fat I do look in a mirror at times and I know I should lose some weight but I have very little motivation although my motivation is returning as only a few months ago I would have said I had no motivation at all now I have some and I would like to drop some weight before I see the diabetic specialist again.

I wasn't upset about what dad and Sandy said as I knew they were talking from love and concern but it is never nice to be told you are fat and it did hurt a little. At present I am between 97-99 kilos so I am about 50 kilos overweight.

Leo this morning told me he loves me and he thinks I am beautiful and I am not fat I am just nanna and he loves me just the way I am, Blain joined in and said he loves me more then Leo does so that started a small fight about who loves me most.

Well I have to go and peg the washing on the line, we are in for another scorcher here top of 36°c don't ya just love summer................lol

Five Things Friday...............Crime & Consequence

Five things Friday is here again

If you commit a crime suffer the consequence

If the consequence is the death penalty then so be it, you rolled that diced

One country can't tell another country what punishment they can have, if the criminal had a fair trial and did commit the crime they just have to deal with the penalty dealt to them

I am not in favour of the death penalty generally speaking, with some exceptions

Some countries have very harsh penalties

Happy Birthday Sydney-May

Guess what it's Thursday and not just any Thursday it is the 22^nd and that means it is my beautiful granddaughter Sydney-May's 5^th birthday. I can remember the day she was born as it was only 5 years ago and my memory isn't that bad.........yet...........

On the 2^nd February she will start school which is another wow, her mum and Michael have asked us over Sunday morning to celebrate her birthday. I want to get my ass into gear and wrap up her present as I don't know if Kathy will be bringing her over this afternoon to see me and if she does I want the gift wrapped and ready.

What else it is another hot day here, so I have the air conditioning going of course. 

Wordless Wednesday