Veronika Wild

H i there everyone! Just wanted to wish you all a really jolly HO! HO! HO! kind of Christmas. There's no snow here of course - it's 39o Celsius and I can only dream about White Christmasses. No flowers now either - just dry crackling bush all around. It makes me nervous about Carols by Candelight tomorrow night. Maybe I should take the fire extinguisher - just in case. Signs of the times 1 There are any number of pampered pooches, vets, dog salons and orthodontists in this area All the other signs of Christmas are everywhere. The Christmas tree is up. Corny carols and Christmas specials in the shops, groceries going up, all that tinsel and the man in red turning up everywhere- Wonder what the children think of that? - not to mention the crowds, the queues and the noise. The Christmas Tree There are no decorations on the lower branches because the girls like them too much! Signs of the times 2 and 3 This last one is at a local nursery. They also have another one that says &qu

The last time I saw Western Australia, it was a dry and barren land with lots of bare earth and very little ground cover compared to Tasmania. This time though, it rained the whole of September, making it the wettest winter on record in 50 years and the plants have been celebrating with a riot of colour and variety unlike any I have seen, anywhere. Even a small patch of waste ground beside the visitor's information board in Augusta yielded three different types of orchids and the stoniest roadsides still produced an amazing array of plants and colours. The camera doesn't begin to do them justice - especially the flamboyant blues and reds, and the brightness of the West Australian sun tends to bleach them out, but for now you'll just have to use your imagination. Sorry, I don't know most of their names either Spider Orchid Little fringed Purple Flower Mystery Blue Flowers The strange Tassel Plant One of my first Orchids. Orchid Spotting became a bit of a passion. Have

*Translation: A paddock is the Australian word for field. When truck drivers say they are going for a run across the paddock, they mean they are driving across the Nullabor Plain, that vast area near the bottom of Australia called the Great Australian Bight, the bit which looks like someone has taken a bite out of it. Nullarbor means ‘treeless.’ It is. I'll swear that in 2000 kms there is only one hill and one bend. The last time I did this trip, the road wasn't sealed and it was a long, death defying ordeal of dodging enormous pot holes, wild life and gigantic road trains which loomed out of clouds of red dust. You also had to carry in everything yourself – food, fuel, water and spare parts, as there wasn’t much in between other than a lonely tank or a bore, if you were lucky. This time it was a long, easy, sometimes boring drive with very few distractions. Only the wind was a bit of a problem, tossing the van around like a shoebox and making it use much more fuel that it s

Congratulations Jerry! My friend Jerry is back, or least back from his trip around Australia in his ‘Flying Hanky’ – a motorised parachute –it looks for all the world like a flying lawnmower – raising funds and raising awareness about Suicide and Depression. He arrived in Melbourne on Monday the 15 th of Dec 2008 at 7:35am, after flying 12,127 kilometres “ the first person in international aviation history to successfully complete such a feat! ” You can see the clip on his or my Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com A bit over a year ago Jerry was himself in the pit of despair and contemplating suicide but was helped by a counsellor at Beyond Blue. Since then he has fallen out of the sky periodically, had all kinds of mechanical problems and been grounded by bad weather, but has met fantastic people and seen some amazing scenery along the way. He has however, also seen much tragedy, especially in rural Australia where both isolation and the macho culture conspire against

Reflections on a Reunion I went to a school reunion recently. How strange it was to be revisiting people, places and times that I hadn’t thought about in four decades or so. Since we were a very mixed bunch, drawn from all over the world, I thought it would be interesting to do a little survey to see what had become of us in the meantime. My special interest was in those who had emigrated here from other countries as we had. What was their experience like? How did they cope with being uprooted and coming to a strange country? What did they achieve and what was the impact on local populations and the broader society? Not many people responded, but those who did, reported how surprisingly emotional they felt when recalling those times and their subsequent experiences. Like me they had not thought about this era in a very long time. Here then, is an informal summary of what I learned both at the reunion and from the survey, not definitive or conclusive by any means, but a little