"What's it made from?"

our neighbour asked. He was looking suspiciously at something his wife had just bought for him.
      "Cotton and something," she told him, "There's a label in there. It's 65% cotton. I couldn't get pure cotton."
He heaved a sigh and went off to try the item on. She looked at me and said, "He's back in the Dark Ages. He thinks you can still buy pure cotton shirts without paying the earth for them."
I remember those shirts. My grandfathers wore them. My father wore them. 
They were always white because their occupations dictated they wore white shirts. My paternal grandfather wore a suit  he had made himself. My father wore a suit his father had made. In extremely hot weather they might remove the suit jacket. My grandfather wore a waist coat as well - and a watch on a chain.
And  the shirts were white.
They had detachable collars. 
My paternal grandmother starched those collars to within an inch of their lives. It was one of the many things she taught me to do too.
Grandpa had other shirts of course...the gardening, fishing, and cleaning the car sorts of shirts. I really don't remember them well apart from the fact that I think they were blue and had stripes. He never wore those with his suits. The Senior Cat didn't either.
These days the Senior Cat still prefers white shirts - "So I know what goes with what." But, he has other shirts. They are mostly in a disgraceful state but he keeps telling me "there's a bit of wear in them yet" - along with the "bit of wear" in the "gardening" garments my mother made him more than twenty (or even thirty) years ago.
His shirts do tend to be a mixture of polyester and cotton. I know he would like pure cotton too. I wouldn't even mind ironing them for him but he agrees it wouldn't be worth five times the price - even if I could find them. 
My neighbour feels differently. She detests ironing to the point where her husband irons his own shirts. He claims to like doing it.
But I do wonder what they would both make of the other shirt I remember my grandfather having.
It was very fine linen. It had fuller sleeves and it was worn with a jabot. Grandpa only wore it very, very occasionally. He wore it with a kilt of course - a kilt in the family tartan which had been hand sewn by his grandmother.
I never had to deal with that. I am thankful about that too. My grandmother found ironing that linen one a real trial. 
But I could still starch a detachable collar if asked to do so.
 

We are running out of volunteers

it seems.
There is yet another small piece in today's paper about the lack of volunteer fire fighters. It should have been a front page headline.
We need volunteer fire fighters. 
It's a dangerous job. It's horribly uncomfortable too. It requires skill. The people who do it need to be trained. Time needs to be devoted to that. Money is needed for equipment. I could go on.
Our state government does not seem to appreciate this. They certainly seem unwilling to face just how serious the situation is. Oh yes, they set up the "Emergency Services Levy" - a tax on everyone to fund these services. 
The problem is that the money isn't going where it should be going.
I am not sure how the state government thinks a major outbreak of fire in the hills behind us would actually be fought.
And then the government is also complaining that there aren't enough volunteers in other areas either. That's hardly surprising. They have made it much more difficult to volunteer now. It isn't just the "police checks". Most people don't mind those - although paying for them is an issue. There are the other issues. There is the compulsory "OHS" training - occupational health and safety training.  One of the workers at a local charity shop complained that a "young thing in her 20's came and told us to wash our hands after handling the clothes that came in". It isn't something the volunteers do anyway they do it thoroughly. The woman in charge also makes sure that the facilities are kept particularly clean. As she said to me, "You never know where things are coming from."
And there are the insurance issues. The cost of insurance keeps rising and, if nothing else, you need public liability insurance.
I am occasionally called in to give assistance with paperwork or help in writing a letter. Now the manager is worried that someone who is coming to inspect might say something and try to stop her using me in that way. No, the police check is not an issue. What is an issue is that they aren't supposed to provide that sort of help anymore. A person needs to be sent on somewhere else. 
Actually that's the last thing they need. They need help there and then. They might well not go on to the next place. It all gets too hard.
Of course there is a need to ensure that people are safe and trained to do the job but there is also a need for commonsense and the ability to call in someone who can do the job.
If people are willing to go out and risk their lives fighting fires and if women well over the age of 80 are still willing to give up a day a week and do an excellent job in the local charity shop then the government needs to be saying "thank you" rather than making it more difficult.
You see, when the volunteers run out it is going to cost everyone more.

Tea - the making thereof

but not the Japanese "tea ceremony".
I know almost nothing about the Japanese "tea ceremony" apart from that it is apparently long and complex and takes years to master.
I know a little about making tea however. I have made thousands of pots of tea in my life. 
The Senior Cat has tea mid-morning and mid-afternoon - and sometimes at other times. A friend has tea whenever she arrives. My automatic reaction to W...'s arrival is to put the kettle on. Other people turn up expecting tea too.
I thought I could make tea until I was at university in London. There I came across S.... Her family owned, and presumably still do, half the shares in a very large tea estate. The brand is a household name. 
S... knew about tea. Every so often she would head off to some point in London and get her own, specially blended variety. She would bring back other varieties for people to try too.
And she taught me how to make tea - all the while complaining about the lack of rain water with which to make it.
Tea starts with having the pot ready to use - no use trying to get it after the kettle has boiled.  
Tea is made with loose tea - never a tea bag.
The kettle is filled with cold water that has never been heated before. It is preferable to use rain water.
You bring the water to the point where it is almost - but not quite - boiling. 
You warm the pot quickly by pouring in just a little water and swirling it around.
You add tea according to the number drinking it and the strength you require as well as the variety of tea. (There are no rules about this. You learn these things as you go.)
You pour on the amount of water you require. The tea should actually "fizz" slightly if the water is just at boiling point. This means the oxygen is being released and this will enhance the flavour of the tea.
You allow the tea to "steep" - but not for too long. Again, the time depends on the variety and the strength you require.
If you take milk S...'s view was that it came after the pouring of the tea. Ditto sugar.
I am not sure why anyone would want sugar in tea - except for cases of shock.
I won't claim to be an expert but I know "non-tea drinkers" who will say,
    "Oh if Cat's making tea with rainwater then I'd like some".
Middle Cat disagrees with all this. She was taught to make tea by a Fijian-Chinese woman who says the water should never boil. The Senior Cat says this is nonsense and the above method is the only way tea should be made.
Tea with water boiled in the microwave is an abomination which should never be allowed.
All I know is that tea made the way described above tastes much better than tea made with a tea bag with water from an urn.
You may disagree - and if you know another way to make tea that tastes like tea should then please let me know.

The election campaign has

started.
This state goes to the polls next March. It's a fixed term government so the date has been fixed since the last election.
I don't like the idea of fixed terms. Certainty? Yes, that's a good thing. Getting rid of a government which is not performing or has done something improper or illegal? Apparently impossible.
The present government needs a shake up. Although it is claiming "underdog" status sources tell me they are still "very confident" they can retain power, especially since the planned return of a political identity.
But it isn't just that. 
We have the state's Education Minister holding out for more funding. She is claiming that the state is "losing" around $230m in funding. Actually we aren't. The money was never there in the first place. Of course she would like it. No doubt everyone in the state would like it but it was never more than a "perhaps" and then only "if" many people agreed to many things. 
In politics of course that makes no difference. You simply tell the voters the naughty federal government is diddling the state out of a lot of money. Yes, people will believe it. It doesn't matter which flavour of state or federal government you are talking about - or even if they are both left or both right (or central) - it is something which can be used as an election issue.
And then there is the "big" announcement in this morning's paper. This involves the major development of a tourist attraction to make it "world class".  At present it is an interesting but small wildlife park. The plan is to turn it into something big and glitzy - hotel, shopping mall and more, complete with cable car and tree top walkway.  
Maybe. There have been other big plans announced before. There is a zoo outside the city which is at the site of what was supposed to be a "satellite city". The city has never eventuated - possibly because people don't want to travel that far to work in the city or the surrounding suburbs. It may happen when the land runs out down here or it might not.
I can think of two major problems with the announcement made in this morning's paper. One of them probably, almost certainly, applies to the satellite city. That's water. A lot of people require a lot of water. Where would you get it from? We already tend to have water restrictions in summer because the dams in the hills don't hold enough for the increasing numbers of backyard pools being built. The other problem with the proposed wildlife park development is the location. It's in an area where a fire could be disastrous. Trying to get a lot of people out very quickly could be extremely difficult - if not impossible.
So, it might sound good if you like that sort of thing but I think there might need to be a lot more homework done.
Oh well, I guess it's part of the election campaign.

Taking a gap year

is still considered "controversial". 
   "It's like a year long holiday" and "they get out of the work habit". Then there is "they can't afford to be a year behind everyone else" and "maths students should never take a year out" or "if they are really serious then they will just get on with it " and "it looks bad on a c.v. - employers don't like that sort of thing".
Ms W has a close friend whose older brother has just finished school. He should do well...and he is off on a gap year. He's going to Italy - which is where his grandparents came from - and he is going to "brush up" his Italian and get to know his extended family and work at the vineyards they own. When he comes back he plans to go to university.
His parents support the idea but they have been criticised for doing so. His sister, Ms W's friend, told me that, even with plans in place, his parents are being told that he shouldn't do it. He should go straight to university. I saw his mother briefly when she came to pick her daughter up and she raised her eyes to the sky and said,
     "We think it might be very good for him. He wants to go. He's going."
I said, "It's a plane journey away - and if you can't trust your cousins who can you trust."
She smiled and said,
       "It's just as well they have grown up."
Yes, I've heard a tale or two about their escapades when young.
But I thought of all that this morning when I saw a small piece in the paper where a large proportion of university graduates are saying their degrees were "a waste of time". They are not using the knowledge gained. 
It makes me wonder yet again whether a "gap year" should be compulsory for everyone.  (If it really is a problem with maths students then make arrangements accordingly.) I certainly think language students should head off for a year and live in the country of the language or languages they will be studying. It would undoubtedly raise their level of understanding of the language. Almost any other choice of career will benefit from learning to get along with a greater variety of people and experiencing new ideas and places even within your own country. A gap year working abroad will help you grow up - fast. 
There was a girl living not far from us who was "just fed up with study". Her results were excellent but it had been very hard work for her. She told me, "I can't just keep it up for another four years. I need a break."
Against the wishes of her family she did take one. She used the money she had saved from her part time job, bought a plane ticket and headed off to Europe and a job working with a family. The first job did not work out. She actually feared for her safety. It almost made her head home but the agency she had applied to took her worries seriously - indeed very seriously - and they offered her another position. She didn't look back then. The family was busy and often chaotic. She was the one who had to organise and remind and get things done.  They didn't want her to leave and they still keep in touch. 
     "It was the best thing I could have done," she told me on her return. 
Her brother backpacked through Europe doing menial jobs a couple of years later and decided not to go to university at the end of it. It took him some years to decide what he wanted to do and he is now doing a degree part time in an entirely different field from his original likely choice. "The first idea would have been a big mistake," he once told me.
I know not everyone can do it - and not everyone wants to. Not everyone will have a positive experience or learn something from it either. Perhaps though it would be wise to make it the expected thing. If someone decides they don't want to go to university at the end of it then is that necessarily a bad thing?   

Transport or no transport?

I have just been reading about someone else's transport worries. Her local station is under thread of imminent closure. She uses a wheelchair and the train service is essential.
Some time back our line was closed for a long period. The interstate gauge and the local gauge are different and the government decided to "put this right". What it meant was making one line a dedicated interstate line and leaving the other line as the local line. It made the local line a "single track working". They used it as an excuse to close several stations. 
When I was a kitten the train went a lot further up into the hills. It was, among other things, a fun day out for us. There was a lot to see on the trip. The line was well used. I suppose fewer people had cars and the "freeway" did not exist. Now people can belt up and down the freeway and prefer to travel in their cars.
That's all very well but for those of us who rely on public transport in any form it can be a disaster. The only form of local public transport I can use are the trains. I need to take my trike with me and I am not permitted to take it on the buses. It is classed as a "bike" rather than a "mobility aid". 
It means I don't go far unless Middle Cat acts as a sort of taxi service or someone is willing to pick me up. I am not comfortable about asking people to do that unless I can do something in return. No,  they shouldn't have to do it.
I fall between the cracks when it comes to eligibility for taxi vouchers too.
And, if they close a station, then I either have to ride further - or I just can't get there. I'm one of the lucky ones in that respect. For my friend it will be even more of a problem. Pushing herself to the next station along the line  just isn't an option.
There is very little sympathy around for this sort of thing. It's "well get a taxi then". Hold it right there. Taxis are expensive and "access" cabs are particularly unreliable because there simply aren't enough of them - especially at the times they are most likely to be needed. 
Tell people that and there is a shrug of the shoulders and they say, "Well, don't go anywhere then."
When someone points out that they need to get to a medical appointment there is, "Well, I suppose you do need to do that."
But if you want to go to a social event then forget it. "Look it's too bad you can't go but you can't expect to get help for something like that."
And the other day Middle Cat had to take me somewhere so that I could provide some communication assistance for someone at a medical appointment. She happened to mention this to a doctor and say that taxi vouchers for that sort of thing might help. The response was, "Perhaps she just needs to cut back on her charitable work."
But it wasn't charitable work. It was an essential service for the other person. Someone had to provide it. It allowed a doctor to provide a service in almost the same amount of time as he would to any other patient. There would have been no question about a profoundly deaf person taking an interpreter along so why should the needs of a person who uses another means of communication be ignored? And why should transport be such an issue? 
Transport issues can severely restrict a person's capacity to be employed but they can also impact on every other aspect of their lives. And yes, your resident cat is feeling grouchy and growling again. Am I being unreasonable?

We have no phone

at present. 
Well, we have no "land" line.
Phones in this household are a complex issue. The Senior Cat has a mobile phone.  I have a mobile phone - sort of. We also have a phone which runs through the VOIP system.
We have the latter because the Senior Cat finds that easy to use. He refers to it as "the land line". He still thinks of it as being like the old copper network. It works the same way in that he can make a call by dialling in a number - at least, by pressing the keys. He is happiest doing that. 
Most of his friends seem to be happy doing that too. 
Let's face it. It's an age related issue as much as anything else. 
When the Senior Cat was a mere kitten by no means everyone even had a phone. People wrote letters or walked around to see someone who lived close enough. Now they text or phone or get in the car.
A phone call  when the Senior Cat was young was made with some thought. It wasn't a casual thing. Anything outside the immediate area was a "long-distance" call and charged in units of three minutes.
Where I was born my parents had no phone. There was nothing available.  The Senior Cat and two other staff could see out the windows of their classrooms up the hill to where our house was. When my arrival was imminent my parents arranged that my mother would hang a sheet out of the front window and my father had permission to drop everything and rush up the hill to take her to hospital. A phone would have made things much easier. What is more it would have gone through a manual exchange and the person in the post office part of the local general store would have informed the hospital as well as the Senior Cat. As it was I arrived late and school holidays had begun. 
But, as a kitten, I knew about manual exchanges. We went off to the  bush again when I was mid-way through primary school. We went to a tiny place where everyone knew everyone - and everyone's business.  
We didn't have a household phone but there was one at the school - in the classroom the Senior Cat taught us in. It would sometimes ring in the middle of a lesson.  We would sit still and quiet while the Senior Cat answered it.  The local postmaster - who ran yet another general store as well - would only call in lesson time if it was urgent or long distance. At other times he would take messages and then pass them on.
We went to other places with manual exchanges too - manual exchanges and "party" lines where more than one family had to use the same line. You couldn't keep much secret and you never said anything you wanted to be kept confidential. The Education Office staff sometimes had to be reminded of that. The Senior Cat was acutely aware of it. My brother and I were permitted to answer the phone if it rang late in the afternoon and we were still in the classroom after school was out but we were under very strict instructions about how to do it. 
Now everyone seems to be connected all the time. I have been avoiding the mobile phone issue. I hate the idea. I have a pre-dinosaur model which only gets turned on if I am out. Only Middle Cat and the Senior Cat have my number. It has been there only for emergencies.
Now it seems that I need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the world of always being available to everyone because the "land line" hasn't been working. It will probably be available after someone comes to look at things this morning. The house has been quiet without any calls coming in. 
I know that access to a phone is a safety issue now - but there is something to be said for the quiet of no phone calls.