Why do tradesmen

need to work with their radios blaring? I cannot work against the mindless chatter of commercial radio, especially the 'talk back' chat shows of mind numbing inanity. I do not like most modern, popular music. My nephews, the duo Red Ice, have long since given up on my modern musical education.
Yesterday someone came to replace a lengthy piece of guttering. He worked to the rhythm of his radio. I imagine that everyone around us was trying to do the same. He appeared to be a perfectly nice and otherwise polite person. I don't think it would even occur to him that others may not share his musical tastes. It was a relief when the job was finished and he left.
Tomorrow the six home-schooled children of one of my more distant cousins are coming for a day of woodwork. They now range in age from 16 down to 3. They are nice children, very nice children indeed but they will be noisy - although in a different way. The second eldest once said to my father, "Isn't it quiet around here?" Yes, it is. We like it like that with the rare exception of a visit by them.
I am comfortable with quiet. If I am writing something other people's compositions tend to intrude unless there is quiet.

Pluto wandered in and

made himself at home on the sofa yesterday. Like all cats he behaves as if this is his right, perhaps even his responsibility.
He did a circuit of inspection first. As a cat he can into places I don't like to think about. I was watching for cobwebs on his ears but perhaps he rubbed them off on his way out of a couple of tight spots.
The nap took place over the time we were eating lunch. If he had been either of our old cats he would have been sitting by Dad's feet waiting for a small piece of chicken cooked in soy sauce, ginger and garlic. Our cats were also fond of lamb and rosemary. Calypso did not care for yoghurt but Mishka liked plain or passionfruit flavour. He did not care for strawberry or raspberry.
I miss our cats even now. It has been nine years since we had a cat. I do not miss the responsibility but I miss the companionship and so does Dad. So, we make the most of Pluto. If he wants to sleep on the sofa he can.

Daylight saving

has ended. I can now officially think about autumn, perhaps a little winter and knitting something other than lightweight lace. Socks are mindless so I have some of those on the go for 'in-between' and 'out and about'. They are small and can be stuffed into unlikely places.
We had a Guild meeting yesterday and there was a long discussion about the judging at last year's Royal Show. It made me realise how little most people know about knitting - and how much some older members of the Guild have managed to learn over the years.
The same is true of other areas of craft. Dad spent most of the weekly 'phone call from my brother in Sydney talking about woodwork and how to solve a problem with the kitchen cupboards my brother is making.
There is a generation coming up which will not have too many of those opportunities. There is no Working with Wood show in Adelaide this year. It is too expensive and there are too few people. There will be a Quilting and Craft Fair but I wonder if it will be the last. There were fewer stalls last year.
At the same time interest in knitting still appears to be high. It should have been on the wane by now according to the natural cycle of such things. The Guild has eleven new members. More knitting is being taught in schools. There are still new knitting books being published and some older ones have been reprinted.
But, looking at what was in the knitting section at the Royal Show, there is still very little creativity. The garments were, with rare exceptions, knitted from commercially available patterns. They were often well executed but only part of the work has been done by the entrant. We should be able to produce something more unique. Perhaps now that daylight saving has ended people will do more?
Kevin Rudd has had yet another meeting with the Chinese leadership. There is also more evidence emerging of large donations to the Labor Party from the Liu family. People do not give donations to political parties without the hope of something in return. I think we have the right to be concerned. To date there has not been a referendum asking whether we wish to become Chinese.

There was a funeral yesterday

for Colin. Colin had Alzheimer's and it was several years since I had seen him. He would not have known me if I had visited. I doubt he ever really knew my name. I was probably never more than a face he recognised and the rider of a tricycle.
We know his wife, a marvellous, competent and loving woman who stayed by him after an accident that also left him mentally impaired. Listening to her talk about him I wondered again about the capacity of people to truly love one another, no matter what. Her relationship with Colin was deep and complex and caring. I admire her for it.
Colin and I had a much simpler relationship. Earlier on he would wander down to the shops for a packet of cigarettes. In those days he was a little odd but functioned fairly normally. I found him crouched down by my tricycle one day, trying to work out how it worked. We had a little chat. In the way of such things, more little chats followed.
As Colin became more impaired he wandered further afield. People in the district knew him and would point him in the direction of home. Colin loved his garden and other people's gardens and thus the garden centre a couple of kilometres away. He liked to wander down there but would sometimes lose his way, especially on the way home. More than once I found him and he would say, "I was waiting for you." In reality he was lost. Whatever I was doing I would ride next to him and see him home as he chattered about gardens and trees and even single leaves. He would repeat himself over and over. As long as I listened he seemed happy.
I had to deliver something for his wife one day. She was not home but Colin was. He was supposed to be doing some tasks around the house but I was a good excuse to stop work for a while. He kept eyeing the tricycle and patting it so I finally said, " Colin, you don't need a helmet up and down the driveway do you want to try riding it as far as the gate?"
He took some time to consider this. I thought he was going to ignore the idea altogether and then, with a grin like a schoolboy up to mischief, he hopped on and took off. He zipped up and back several times. I held my breath hoping he would not head out into the street and, helmetless, into traffic. He did not. When he had done the circuit several times he stopped, climbed off still grinning. "I always wanted to do that!"
Not long afterwards he spent a night out in the bush. The police and rescue services had to search for him. It was a frantic time for everyone but Colin. He was confused but quite unfazed. He had been 'walking home'. It was time for him to leave home too. I am glad he had that ride.

I was passing

the child care centre early yesterday morning and still feel disturbed by the sight and sound of a small boy clinging to the fence and screaming hysterically for his mother. One of the staff tried to take him inside and he screamed, "Don't touch me!"
I wonder if his mother really needs to work? What is it doing to him if this is what happens each day?
Putting your child into day care at six weeks and going back to work seems strange to me. Very few people would earn enough to make it financially worth while to return to work - yet they claim they need to go back to work. An accountant I know has sat down with any number of parents and showed them that they are losing money by having children in day care, running the extra car etc. They still insist they 'need to work' for financial reasons.
If the Rudd government removes the childcare subsidy what will happen then? Some will continue with professional day care. More will demand that their parents or stay-at-home siblings take on the care. There will be more private paid care - with the potential for abuse.
We will however continue to perpetuate the myth that both parents need to work for financial reasons and because they have over-committed themselves.
There is now a culture which says, "I have a right to (paid) work." Bringing up children is not considered to be 'work'. If you are a stay at home mother you are somehow a lesser being than those who go to (paid) work. Helping out at the local school or volunteering in some other capacity is not an alternative.
So, we have small children screaming hysterically for their parents. We will have yet another generation of children who will grow to expect lavish gifts in lieu of parenting. No doubt someone will tell me this is good for the economy. Perhaps it is fortunate that readers of these ramblings are few and far between.
Of course there are parents who work and manage to spend time with their children - which is probably why Vanessa has never told me how awful my attempts to write really are. Jane is probably tearing her hair out and thinking I learn nothing from her blog either. True - cats are terribly independent and do not care to be told how to wash themselves.

We had lunch

in a tiny, tiny French 'kitchen' yesterday. The owner says it is not a restaurant - and it is more like walking into someone's house.
We were taken there by people who once owned the shop next door. The 'kitchen' is tiny and the menu is strictly limited - but the cooking is excellent and you could actually see the salad next to my piece of quiche.
I used my very limited French -Josephine deserves compliments in her native language - and was given a hug by this delightful woman. How often do you eat out and get hugged by the management? She works alone and the business is gradually dying along with the district. It is sad but Josephine is too old to start somewhere else even if it was not financially risky.
Adelaide seems unable to cope with doing business anyway. The Business Council seems to think we need not only extended daylight saving but we need to put the clocks forward half an hour on a permanent basis to come into line with the eastern states. It seems South Australia really does only do business with this tiny part of the world. We are quite unable to cope with time changes in the rest of the world. No wonder we are falling so far behind.
Add to that our continuing refusal to recognise overseas qualifications in many areas and we are telling people we do not want them to come as well as the fact that we do not want them to do business here.
My own view? It is time some of these wimps grew up.

Paying debts

can take years...as anyone with a mortgage will know.
I spend the last Tuesday afternoon of the month leading a knitting group in the local bookshop. This was not my idea. It often means a bit of juggling and very early rising to get the real work out of the way. It is an interesting group and one of the women mentioned a story she had heard on radio in the morning of a French village which has just repaid a debt of sorts.
Apparently during the war they were protected, at great cost, by Australian soldiers. Although they lost a great deal, including their school, they survived as a village. On their return home the Australians raised enough to rebuild the French school. The French put in the words 'never forget Australia' over the doorway.
Sixty-four years later the French village raised $795,000 to rebuild a school ravaged by bushfires in Victoria.
It is a wonderful story and should be the subject of a book for children but it apparently barely rated a mention on the news.
One reason for this has to be the 'doom and gloom' of the G20 Summit and the Chinese Affair. Neither will go away quickly. If General Motors should go under then Adelaide will catch the 'flu as well. We have been dependent on the car industry for far too long. We failed to diversify when we could. The union movement has always been anxious to preserve jobs in the car industry (after all they paid well) rather than see diversification. The Mitsubishi plant could have been transformed into a plant producing more environmentally friendly items - solar panels, bicycles, mass transport come to mind without thought - but Adelaide has a love affair with the car. We lost the Grand Prix but retained the Clipsal 500 street race. It encourages hoons but the government refuses to acknowledge this even while saying they will refuse to spend money on a drag racing strip. That is probably correct, after all half the thrill of drag racing is to do it on a suburban street where there is a much greater risk - it is, after all, about risk taking. Part of the answer may be to raise the driving age - to a minimum of 18 for a learner and 21 for a P-plater. Perhaps we could even institute a system of Part-P for those under 26 and bring in an 0.01 limit for alcohol for everyone?