Well here we are at Thursday again so it is time for more about the working life in Australia in the 1890’s.
This week we are looking at transport and shops.
To save money most workers lived either in the city or the inner suburbs meaning they would be able to walk to work. As the cities began their slow sprawl to the outer suburbs, trains, ferries, trams and the omnibus system was established to service them.
In the 1890’s the main form of transport was the horse, it was in 1898, 670 four wheeled cabs and 212 hansom cabs crossed the streets of Melbourne and 1,332 drivers were licensed for the movement of goods.
Over time more and more cable trams were able to carry more and more passengers, in 1898 a first class gripman earned 40 shillings per week, while first-class conductors earned 38 shillings per week.
Large department stores had become a feature of city and suburban life by the late 1800’s. Salespeople worked long hours and had strict rules which contrasted with surroundings the these lavish stores, such as David Jones, The Mutual Store and others.
Hello Tuesday, I hope everyone is doing well this weeks creature is the North American Beaver .
The first thing many notice about this beaver is its teeth they are large and strong , they use these to gnaw down trees and build dome shaped homes called lodges.
The can swim up to 8km/h with the aid of their webbed back feet and paddle shaped tail. They are also able to stay underwater for up to 15 minutes and have a set of transparent eyelids that function like goggles.
They are second only to humans in their ability to change their environment, felling trees to transform forests and fields into ponds.
The North American beaver is one of two extant beaver species, along with the Eurasian beaver. It is native to North America and has been introduced in South America and Europe. The North American beaver is one of the official national wildlife of Canada symbols and is the official state mammal of Oregon and New York.
A new week has arrived and that means some facts about the Earth.
If you went soaring through the atmosphere in a hot air balloon, you would find it harder to breathe the higher you went as the atmosphere gets thinner.
The mixture of gases in the atmosphere has taken over 4.5 billion years to evolve, around 99% of the atmosphere is made up of oxygen and nitrogen, the remainder is tiny amounts of other gases.
The force of gravity is not even all over the Earth, a person weighing around 150 pounds at the equator would weigh 151 pounds at the North Pole.
The part of the Earth that has life on it is called the ecosphere.
The length of a day on Earth is increasing by 17 milliseconds per century.
I have no deodorant as Jess ran out and came and took mine, and boy do I stink. I went in and washed under my arms. I turned the a/c on at 9am as I was sick of being drenched in sweat.
The computer was working well till 9am when it decided it was time to freeze.
I decided to start having an egg flip with or for breakie as I am not eating much during the day.
Had a really good night, slept well woke twice to pee but straight back to sleep.
Yesterday afternoon around 3pm Sam walks out of his room needing help with a bleeding finger due to a slip of the knife, he had been eating a pie. Anyway Papa helped him clean it up and cover it with a band aid, it’s not a serious cut thankfully. I helped change the band aids this morning.
Sue popped over to see me no reason other then to make sure I am doing ok. I asked I she could send of the parcel for Thea & Daemon which she said she would do.
Tim had another meeting at work and they have terminated his employment this is ok, he was frustrated with the run around and he has no idea when he will able to go back to work at 100% and that’s what work wanted to know.
It started to piss down rain around 10.30am and came over pretty cool.
Sam out early and Tim was just walking out to go meet him but he was already here.
After around 3hrs sleep I found myself needing to pee 3 times in under an hour, so I decided to get up for an hour or so. I did at last settled down on returning to bed.
I woke to find Tim asleep on the lounge at 5am, he moved from the lounge to our bed.
Had to ring Jess to wake Sam who’s phone was going straight to voicemail, also been raining on and off and I am not suppose to take the scooter out in wet weather.
Due to the rain I rang and cancelled my podiatry appointment. As I sat at my computer and watched yet another very heavy downpour I decided to cancel as I am slow getting in and out of the car and if such a downpour happened when I was getting in or out I would end up drenched. I now go next Wednesday.
SUMMER’S BIRTHDAY SHE IS 11 TODAY
Had a really good night slept straight through for like 10hrs and haven’t been shaking at all since I got up nearly an hour ago. Feels good.
The no shaking lasted till 8.30ish and even after it returned it wasn’t bad.
Felt good all day.
DAEMON’S BIRTHDAY
Had another good nights sleep woke only once to pee and then straight back to sleep. Tremor wise I am not as good as yesterday when I got up but it is also in no way bad.
A warm and sticky day, had turn the a/c on at midday.
I have restarted my exercise program to help keep my body moving as it should, I got a little slack for a while but I think that has passed now.
Another good night, slept straight through again woke with very little shaking. I have the front and back doors opened and the breeze is nice, we are in for another hot day.
I had to go and wake Tim at 11am. He was shocked at how late it was and he was in a deep sleep as I had to say his name a few times before he woke up.
He had a phone call from Youi they said that the woman Sarah is going to help Tim find another job not driving heavy vehicles as he isn’t cleared to do that by his doctors as yet. They guy also said something about how much they will keep paying Tim if he is unable to get another job but I can’t remember what was said. The gist I got was they wouldn’t be paying the amount they are currently paying but I am not sure.
Had another pretty good night woke when the alarm went off, much cooler this morning only 22 degrees better then yesterdays 38 degrees and should stay around the low 20’s all day, with maybe some rain.
I was writing some letters this morning and when I tried to add a photo it came something about the graphics being missing or faulty what the hell, it was fine yesterday. I restarted the computer and it came good.
Been raining all day.
Up at 4.50am after a decent enough good night.
I have no deodorant as Jess ran out and came and took mine, and boy do I stink. I went in and washed under my arms. I turned the a/c on at 9am as I was sick of being drenched in sweat.
The computer was working well till 9am when it decided it was time to freeze.
I decided to start having an egg flip with or for breakie as I am not eating much during the day.
Had a really good night, slept well woke twice to pee but straight back to sleep.
Yesterday afternoon around 3pm Sam walks out of his room needing help with a bleeding finger due to a slip of the knife, he had been eating a pie. Anyway Papa helped him clean it up and cover it with a band aid, it’s not a serious cut thankfully. I helped change the band aids this morning.
Sue popped over to see me no reason other then to make sure I am doing ok. I asked I she could send of the parcel for Thea & Daemon which she said she would do.
Tim had another meeting at work and they have terminated his employment this is ok, he was frustrated with the run around and he has no idea when he will able to go back to work at 100% and that’s what work wanted to know.
It started to piss down rain around 10.30am and came over pretty cool.
Sam out early and Tim was just walking out to go meet him but he was already here.
After around 3hrs sleep I found myself needing to pee 3 times in under an hour, so I decided to get up for an hour or so. I did at last settled down on returning to bed.
I woke to find Tim asleep on the lounge at 5am, he moved from the lounge to our bed.
Had to ring Jess to wake Sam who’s phone was going straight to voicemail, also been raining on and off and I am not suppose to take the scooter out in wet weather.
Due to the rain I rang and cancelled my podiatry appointment. As I sat at my computer and watched yet another very heavy downpour I decided to cancel as I am slow getting in and out of the car and if such a downpour happened when I was getting in or out I would end up drenched. I now go next Wednesday.
SUMMER’S BIRTHDAY SHE IS 11 TODAY
Had a really good night slept straight through for like 10hrs and haven’t been shaking at all since I got up nearly an hour ago. Feels good.
The no shaking lasted till 8.30ish and even after it returned it wasn’t bad.
Felt good all day.
DAEMON’S BIRTHDAY
Had another good nights sleep woke only once to pee and then straight back to sleep. Tremor wise I am not as good as yesterday when I got up but it is also in no way bad.
A warm and sticky day, had turn the a/c on at midday.
I have restarted my exercise program to help keep my body moving as it should, I got a little slack for a while but I think that has passed now.
Another good night, slept straight through again woke with very little shaking. I have the front and back doors opened and the breeze is nice, we are in for another hot day.
I had to go and wake Tim at 11am. He was shocked at how late it was and he was in a deep sleep as I had to say his name a few times before he woke up.
He had a phone call from Youi they said that the woman Sarah is going to help Tim find another job not driving heavy vehicles as he isn’t cleared to do that by his doctors as yet. They guy also said something about how much they will keep paying Tim if he is unable to get another job but I can’t remember what was said. The gist I got was they wouldn’t be paying the amount they are currently paying but I am not sure.
Had another pretty good night woke when the alarm went off, much cooler this morning only 22 degrees better then yesterdays 38 degrees and should stay around the low 20’s all day, with maybe some rain.
I was writing some letters this morning and when I tried to add a photo it came something about the graphics being missing or faulty what the hell, it was fine yesterday. I restarted the computer and it came good.
Well here we are at another Friday and so I will share a little more about Parkinson’s Disease, the dreaded condition I have, today I will share a little about slowness of movement.
The name for this is “hypokinesia” if you can pronounce that you are better then me, anyway it affects everyday movements such as walking, getting out of a chair and in and our of bed, turning over in bed. It can also affect speech, swallowing and facial expressions. If the slowness affects one’s arms then it will affect one’s writing as well as other hand movements.
This slowness of movement is the most important feature in the diagnosis of Parkinson’s and nearly always the most disabling. It is what causes the expressionless face (which I hate) which can lead some to think the suffer is stupid or angry which we are not.
It leads to the lack of natural movements such as blinking or swinging the arms when walking and even if the suffer is nervous they may sit still without turning their head or moving their hands. I wish I could stop moving my hands at times, it always looks like I am waving at people.
They disability from this arises from the fact that our voluntary movements become slow, reduced in range and require more effort and concentration to achieve. This is why our steps become shorter and we may start to drag our feet in a shuffle instead of lifting them off the ground, when we shuffle we can do so pretty fast being unable to stop causing us to run into things, yes this has happened to me.
Repetitive movements need to do things like brush one’s teeth or stirring saucepan can become difficult and frustrating. This also goes to handwriting it can become not just slow but messy and smaller the longer one attempts to write. This books says it can also come to an involuntary halt which will require some effort to resume, damn didn’t know that.
Then there the issues with using our fingers such as trying to turn a page in a book, doing up buttons and and bra hooks which is why I don’t wear bras with hooks anymore. If one hand is more affected then the other it can make two handed tasks even harder like peeling food or doing up shoelaces.
That will do for this post, more to come next week.
Hello everyone, time for a bit more on the working life of Aussie’s in the 1890’s.
This week we will touch other jobs city workers had starting with the good old office worker. Until the invention of the typewriter in 1864 office workers were mostly male.
However by around 1890 more and more middle-class young women were being employed to work the new office machines. Business colleges were teaching the skills of typing and shorthand to more and more females, although these skill were still studied by males.
Despite the advent of typewriters the careful “public service” copperplate hand-writing was still paramount until the twentieth century for work in registers and ledger books.
Then there is the job of a telephonist with the invention of the telephone came new opportunities for young females for employment as a growing number of manual exchanges started to appear. From this time many middle-classes as well as offices had a telephone. Some home even had a special room just for the telephone.
Another Tuesday has arrived so it is time for another creature and this week we have the Flannel Moth Caterpillar.
This moth is also known as the pus caterpillar and touching this creature is definitely a no-no as the hairy comb-over conceals small, exceptionally poisonous spikes that can stick in the skin and cause excruciating pain that lingers for up to 12 hours. If you do happen to touch a puss caterpillar the best way to remove the spines is with sticky tape. Lay it over the site and rip it off.
The puss caterpillar morphs into a flannel moth, which also has a pretty hairdo, but it is harmless.
Another of the caterpillar’s charming traits is its method of poo removal, it flings its faeces away from its body to prevent parasites from being attracted to it.
Jo-AnneRamplings 