Celebrating Positives (offset of the Gripes Thread)

[Litespeed]

Onya bike buddy ..

 

Good to see 

 

Stay shiny side up

[facthunter]

Ride safely. Not just ON and OFF.    Nev

[old man emu]

We forget that in cold climates, the population dresses to keep warm. The clothing Jerry will buy will be designed for the conditions. If you wore it during an Australian winter, you'd die of heat stress.

[facthunter]

It's NOT THAT different, unless you live in the Kimberleys. I Haven't seen any snow ploughs in London. Climate where I live is about the same as Hobart and you get " Black Ice" even at 1400 hours at Harrietville And frosted roads within 5Kms of Here.. In Burra, when I woke up, my RED 1918 INDIAN was WHITE.  I've been in WAGGA when the temp never got over 4 degrees all day and I rode the whole day on a Rally.  Afterwards I got into the Motel Bed fully clothed and left the Electric Blanket on full for ages . Nev

[onetrack]

Ballarat has to take the cake for the coldest town in Vic. A horrible place to live, followed by Bathurst and Lithgow. I've seen -7°C in the Wheatbelt of W.A. on a bitterly cold July morning. The ground was solid white for kilometres. -3°C in the W.A. Goldfields and thick sheets of ice still in bowls of water outside at 10:00AM. I think those temps would kill me now. Didn't bother me as much, when I was young.

[old man emu]

A positive to celebrate!!!

 

Today I attend Gilgandra's Remembrance Day ceremony. We have an early education centre in town which seems to have a good enrolment. The older children were walked to our memorial and sat down to listen to the ceremony. Not that they attended to it without distraction, but they were well behaved. When it came time for the laying of wreaths, the little ones lined up and came to the memorial with commemorative poppies which each child placed in the memorial.

 

It wasn't "cute". I doubt that any one of them knew the significance, but by involving our young ones from an early age is a way to maintain links with the honourable histroy of volunteer military service of our forefathers. This link is a particulary strong in Gilgandra as it was from here in 1915 that the first of the locally organised recruting marches began - The Coo-ee March.

 

https://www.mrl.nsw.gov.au/learn/historical-research/world-war-one/coo-ee-march

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_marches

[old man emu]

Hey Nomad! What was sad about that?

 

[nomadpete]

2 hours ago, old man emu said:

Hey Nomad! What was sad about that?

 

The coo-ee march, and the glorification of the war.....

The thousands dead....

The futility of wars.....

The lack of understanding - that the young cannot comprehend the concept of sacrifice...

 

What do you not understand about the sadness of it all?

[spacesailor]

Not ' sadness ' at all !.

How many get to live " free " from the futility of war ,

Never , to even think that they will be conscripted for " Canon fodder " .

I am the very first in all  my ancestors not to be in the Army . ( unfit for the RAF ).

my grandfather would turn over in his grave . ( ONLY WOUNDED ,3 times in 3 wars ) .

spacesailor

 

[old man emu]

10 hours ago, nomadpete said:

What do you not understand about the sadness of it all?

Remembrance is a two-sided coin. On one side we remember the brave act those people made to enlist to protect their principles. On the otherside we realise the futility of armed conflict. Perhaps in the 21st Century we might instil in people the futility of armed conflict. Probably a forlorn hope, but still a hope. 

[facthunter]

Most returned Soldiers are Anti war, realising the cost and futility of it. Nev

[spacesailor]

Dunkirk! .

Great save ? .

But no mention of the thousands of " rail workers " taken to France to repair their Infrastructure. 

Left behind ,to be shot as spies .

spacesailor

[facthunter]

A Retreat, in this instance , is no place for a Holiday. Nev

[octave]

Just having a leisurely stroll up a mountain.

 

 

[facthunter]

"Lookout"  Nev

[octave]

22 minutes ago, facthunter said:

"Lookout"  Nev

This is as close as I dare get to the cliff edge.

[onetrack]

It never ceases to amaze me that tourists get within a metre of huge cliffs without anything to stop them being blown off the edge - yet if you worked anywhere within 20 metres of that drop, Worksafe would make you wear a hardhat, safety specs, a safety harness, and they'd also require another person to be on standby watching for you potentially making a mistake.

 

I can recall a woman falling off the edge at one of the clifftop whale-watching areas along the Bight in Western S.A. and Eastern W.A. in recent years. Those Bight cliff edges are particularly dangerous, and only a few spots have railings. A gust of wind can come out of nowhere, and send you straight over the edge.

[octave]

I guess you can't fence off every cliff. You just have to rely on common sense which works most of the time

When I visited this place in in the early 70s there was much less fencing. In fact there is a narrow finger of rock that stuck out over a 10 metre drop which used to be sign posted as the "Nerve test" Back then people used to walk out to the end and have there photo taken. The sign was removed many years ago I think. These days we are more safety conscious or some may say risk averse.

 

 

[octave]

This is the "nerve test"

 

 

[old man emu]

I went to my Mum's birthday party today. We were going to put candles on her cake, but 100 candles would have set off the fire sprinkler system.

 

 

[facthunter]

Especially IF they are Chinese. Some of them have Plastic in them. Nev

[Marty_d]

1 hour ago, octave said:

This is the "nerve test"

 

 

That causes a pucker just looking at it in a photo.

[onetrack]

My sense of self-preservation far exceeds any desire to carry out a dangerous "nerve test". It's a policy that has served me well in more than 76 years.

Just travelling on public highways today with the rest of the ill-trained and undisciplined road users, is enough of a regular "nerve test" for me.

[octave]

Me too, although we do often go on a bush walk that does have a narrow path with a canyon on one side that whilst we don't find it scary we do take great care. Many activities take care and planning and have the potential for bad outcomes. Many of us here have flown little aeroplanes that many would describe as dangerous.

By the way in the picture of me near the cliff edge,  I am about 2 metres away from the edge.   The greater danger on this walk were the steep rocky areas we had to scramble up. Mrs Octave did have her feet slide from under her and landed on her arse and grazing an elbow slightly.  You have to live your life though, can't stay at home wrapped in cotton wool.

[onetrack]

I think it's pretty important that you understand your capabilities and limitations as you age, and make sure you take that into account, when carrying out strenuous and risky trips.

And a lot of unfit people don't seem to realise their limitations in those respects, too. The number of people having to be rescued from hikes and adventures, seems to be increasing recently.