Ok here we are at Monday and I have been missing from blogland for the last few days ok closer to a week, this is because I have been busy of a morning and in the afternoon Blain has been here and he hogs the computer.

If I am going to do a post I really need to do it in the first half of the day before he gets a chance to hog the computer. He prefers to use my computer over Tim’s which makes Tim happy but not me.

Anyway what news do I have well my washing machine stopped working of Thursday, it was ok on Wednesday when I did a load of washing but Thursday it wouldn’t spin dry the clothes. Now Thursday I was in and out of the house as Leo had to go to the doctors due to him being sick all week and of course when we final take him to the doctor he is fine. Back to the washing machine I threw a load in before going out to shop, when I get home I check it and it is out of balance so I reshuffle the load and we went to take Leo to the doctors when we got home I check the washing machine and it is out of balance again and I do a reshuffle and stand and watch it and it was out of balance again in only a couple of minutes. So I rang the company and someone will be here today to look at it.

I have to go out at 11am to get my new hearing aids so if the washing machine guy hasn’t been here by then I will have to get either Natasha or Jessica to come over and wait here for him to turn up.

Oh yeah on Friday I bought Jessica two new heaters for her house one was a small fan heater the other was a convector heater, well the fan heater she loves the other one she said was useless and returned it to me so I will have to get her another fan heater or she could go and buy one for herself.

So she brings the heater back here and you know what Tim says what are you going to do with it, I said use it and he didn’t saying anything but I could tell he thought we don’t need a heater, the man usually says he doesn’t think it is cold when in fact it is bloody cold.

So that is all for this post, I have already managed to read about 40 odd blog posts this morning, but I was up at 6am to pack Leo’s school lunch and to take his school clothes and school bag over to Natasha’s house so she could get him ready and take him to school.

Being Monday I usually have Leo for the night but Natasha told me this morning that Jono can’t have Blain tonight so instead of Leo I will be having Blain unless I turn into the big old softie and let them both stay the night, we will see how things pan out this afternoon.

This week I thought I would talk a little about the Magna Carta do you know what it is………….I am sure you have heard of it though.

Well if you don’t know I will tell you because it was on the news tonight and it made me think why are they talking about this old thing. Well it is because it was signed or some say had the seal of King John on the 15 June 1215 which was 800 years ago.

Anyway it is a charter agreed by King John of England, it was first drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons, it promised to protect the rights of the church, as well as protecting the barons from illegal imprisonment and gave them access to swift justice and limitations on feudal payments to the crown to be implemented through a council of 25 barons.

However, neither side stood by their commitments and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent 111 leading to the first barons war. It was after the death of King John that Henry 111 reissued the document in 1216, be it stripped of some of its more radical content, in an unsuccessful attempt to build political support.

At the end of the war in 1217 it formed part of the peace treaty agreed at Lambeth where the document acquired the name Magna Carta, to distinguish it from the smaller Charter of the Forest which was issued at the same time. It was in1297 that it became part of England’s statute law.

The charter became part of English political life and was typically renewed by each monarch in turn, although as time went by and the fledgling English Parliament passed new laws, it lost some of its practical significance. However, at the end of the 16th century there was an upsurge in interest in Magna Carta. Lawyers and historians at the time believed that there was an ancient English constitution, going back to the days of the Anglo-Saxons, that protected individual English freedoms.

It is a bloody long document being just under 4000 words long,quite long even by the standards of the time, it would have taken clerks at least four hours to write out each copy. Of course there was more then one copy and no photocopiers around.

The original versions would have been written in Latin, the first known English version was made in 1534, three hundred years after it was first written. Although the first translated version was into French, this was because French was the international language of chivalry, of the nobility and gentry aka the ruling classes. The first surviving text copy is a print copy from 1534.

Now you maybe wondering what the Magna Carta’s greatest achievement was well it placed the king under the law, as the kings view was that the king was above the law, he believed he was only answerable to God, the Magna Carta changed that.

Now you most like think it did nothing for women being it was written in a time when women had few if any rights, however, it did do something significant for well-born aristocratic women.

Clause 7: A widow, after the death of her husband, shall forthwith and without difficulty have her marriage portion and inheritance.

Clause 8: No widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she prefers to remain without a husband.

The Magna Carta contained 63 clauses when it was first written but only 3 of those clauses remain part of English law today One defends the liberties and rights of the English Church, another confirms the liberties and customs of London and other towns, but the third is the most famous:

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.
To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

So now you know a little about the damn thing, I knew none of this myself.

Here we are on a cold and wet Monday afternoon, I just got back from picking up the boys from school and we have Leo here tonight and Blain is at Jessica’s place with his dad and his brother. His father finds it easier to stay at either Jessica or Natasha’s place as he lives a good 45-60 minutes away now.

Kathy has just rang me to tell me she is changing her clothing style she wants to move into long tops, this I think maybe because she wants to hide her tummy this of course I get as I have a tummy as does many woman

.

Kathy is also concerned about how high her power bill will be when it comes as she has the heaters going and using the dryer all the time well more them she would like to and of course the cost of power is high generally she thinks her next bill will be around a $1000 but she is doing the right thing and paying $150 a month off it.

I think we all worry about how high our power bill will be, although Tim has a habit of thinking our bill is always so high when in fact it isn’t most people I know have bills around $1000. As I have said in the past I disconnect things like the washing machine, microwave and some other appliances to say money. There was a time I didn’t think that would be something I would do ever but now I do so go figure.

I am not feeling very well again today just achy and tired but nothing serious, I hope I am not coming down with something but it is that time of year I just realised that I have not had my flu shot this year just forgot about it.

Yeah I have no news this afternoon, I am just checking in.

Ok it is now Sunday afternoon at Jo-Anne’s house, if is a nice quiet afternoon after what was a pretty good day. I was up at 8am and the first thing I did after getting dressed was to peel the veggies for lunch, yeah we had a baked lunch with roast beef, although the roast beef we too fatty for me and wasn’t as nice as my mum makes, I think I will stick to buying a bbq chook when I do a baked lunch.

After lunch Tim and the girls (Tasha & Jess) sat out the front talking for a long time, I ended up going out and joining them it was nice. Then I got Jess to vacuum out for me before they all left. Kathy wasn’t at lunch today as they went over to Michaels brother place for brunch. So since Kathy wasn’t here I sent the left over with Natasha for her to give to Jono, she said that he was going to pick up Blain and it meant that I was able to get rid of them without tossing them in the bin.

This afternoon I even went and had a nap as around 2ish I was feeling so very tired and felt myself falling asleep while watching tv so a nap was needed. Tim woke me when Kathy rang to have a bitch about life.

I then had to do the weekly medications I do them every Sunday afternoon, in fact I think my mum should do theirs of a Sunday but no she does them each morning I just find it easier to do them once a week,like my nanna use to.

Then Tim asked me if I would go to Macca’s and get him a burger with beetroot which is the McOz but for some reason when I got there I forgot what I went for and got him a McFeast instead, oh well he ate it anyway and I had a Quarter Pounder so that is tea over and done with.

So now I am writing this then mum will ring and I will spend half an hour talking to her before putting my feet up and watching telly for a while before I go to bed.

Here it is Saturday afternoon and I am only just getting around to doing a post, yesterday I was flat out like a lizard drinking from the time my feet hit the floor in the morning till the time my body hit the hot water of my bath in the late afternoon.

I wanted to do five things Friday, but I just felt too exhausted to bother yesterday afternoon so instead I will tell you what my last few days have been like. Thursday was spent at home doing nothing much I did of course picked up the boys from school, Friday was busy shopping and picking up grandson’s from school.

I don’t have either boy sleeping over on Thursday’s they stay with Jessica but we have Blain Fridays, however, yesterday when we dropped Leo off Blain ran into the house with him and Jessica proceeded to ask me to go and get food for her & Leo for dinner. The next thing I know Blain comes out and asks if he can stay, I said he could if Jessica was prepared to bring him back later as once I got home I wasn’t going out again, he says no I want to stay all night, so I said it was up to Jessica and she said yes.

I still had to go and get food for them, although I told Jessica I wouldn’t come home and wait an hour and half and go and get food for her but if she wanted me to do it I would do it before I came home. So in the end I went and got Henny Penny for the boys and Chinese for Jessica. Oh for all those who have no idea what Henny Penny is it is like KFC but it is an Australian version.

This morning I went out again to do some more shopping I needed school socks for Leo and yes it should be his mother’s job to get these but I will die of old age waiting for her to get them. However, when I was at Kmart at Westfield they didn’t have what I wanted to I went to Kmart at Glendale instead and thankfully they had socks and some reduced as well so I ended up getting socks for Leo, Blain and me and a dress for Kathy that I will put aside in my gift box.

Now Tim has gone to work and I am home alone waiting for the washing machine to finish so I can peg that out on the line although it does feel like it is going to rain but I will still put it on the line and hopefully tomorrow will be a nice day.

Well here we are at History Tuesday and today I am asking if anyone has heard of Maud Butler, I expect most of you have not, I also had not heard of her till I was watching Tony Robinson’s Tour of Duty have to say that show has given me a lot of ideas for history posts.

Anyway let’s move on to Maud she was a 16 year old girl from Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley, in New South Wales, Australia.

During the First World War Maud wanted to serve and go and fight the war so she cut her hair dressed as a soldier and stowed away on a troopship however her boots gave her away and she was returned to Melbourne and had to go in front of a magistrate.

Maud was a 16 year old waitress with a sense of adventure she had attempted to register with the Red Cross as a nurse but was turned away so she decided to try something else as she wanted to go and join her brother in Egypt.

So on the 23^rd of December 1915 dressed as a soldier she climbed aboard a troopship waiting at the Woolloomooloo docks, she hid in a lifeboat.

She is described as a clear-skinned rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed type of country girl who really wanted to help in some way like her brother was. She managed to get hold of an Australian Imperial Force uniform in bits and pieces and had her photo taken in it. The day before she stowed away she went to Woolloomooloo Bay to see a transport there and met an office telling him she had friends on the ship. While talking to him she made up her mind to see him again as a soldier and went straight to a barber and had her hair cut short. The next evening she climbed aboard the Suevic, she said she didn’t realise ships were so tall and it was a struggle to climb up the rope but she managed it and hid in a lifeboat.

It seems this was not an incident that Maud wanted to share with her children and grandchildren and after another failed attempt to go to war as a soldier she settled down and lived for many years in Campsie, Sydney where she ran a private hospital until she retired, she died in 1987 at the age of 88.

Miss Maud Butler on the deck in AIF uniform, who tried to embark on the troop transport ship Star of England, and also on the ship Suevic. Maud had stowed away on the Suevic which sailed from Sydney on 23 December 1915, hoping to get to Egypt where her brother was serving. She arrived in Melbourne on 25 December 1915

It is 10.30am on Monday morning, it is a public holiday here (Queens Birthday) and I woke up tired this morning first time I have done that in a long time but still I was up at 7.30am because I was worried if I stayed in bed I would be the one that Sunrise would ring to win the money but of course they DIDN’T ring me.

We will be having Leo here tonight, and since Tim is on night work this week it will be just me and Leo and for the rest of the week it will be me and Blain.

Yesterday the girls came over for breakfast and Tim was here as well and have to say he liked that I did breakfast he said he really enjoyed it but would have liked it if I had some little sausages can’t remember what they are called but I couldn’t find them when I was doing the shopping as per usual when I want them they are not around when I don’t want them I see them all the time in the supermarket.

Mum was telling me that my dad is so frustrating at times, he has been complaining about the mould on the kitchen ceiling and yes mum knows it isn’t good and should be removed but she can’t do it and truthfully dad can’t either. Dad has a habit of saying that Dave (my brother) should go over and do it but truth is that Dave is busy he works and has his own home and family to take care of. Anyway yesterday dad said he was going to get up and clean the ceiling himself, mum told him if he did that he would be in hospital by nightfall as he is in no condition to get up and clean the ceiling with Exit Mould. Dad has many health problems and even if he didn’t fall off the ladder he would still end up having trouble breathing and very well might end up in hospital. If they had the money mum would pay someone to come and clean the ceiling but the can’t afford it so they just have to wait till someone has the time to go and do it.

I don’t have much news today, mostly because I am so tired and my brain isn’t working very well so I am just going to leave it here for this post.

Well it is now Saturday afternoon and what a day it’s been all the girls and grandchildren except Sydney-May who is at her fathers came over for lunch, Tim did fish for himself and the girls because Jessica asked him too and I had steak and we bought $8 worth of hot chips to go with.

Now this morning Blain was looking for his red handball which was behind the lounge so his mum pulled everything out and that set her off on a cleaning frenzy she has vacuum the whole house and cleaned up the bathroom and Tim’s office and then she swept out the front of the house. To stop the leaves being trampled into the house every time someone walks inside.

It was 26 years ago today that my youngest daughter aka my special girl was born at 4.15am, it was a Tuesday. Tim went and bought her a dashcam for her car for those who do not know what that is it is video camera that is attached to the windscreen of the car to record as she drives. He bought one for Kathy last year for her birthday and we have one in our car as well.

Jessica had wanted us to have Leo tonight while she goes out to her friends place and we said we would but in the end Natasha decided to have him instead to give me and Tim a break as we have had at least one grandchild every night this last week.

The girls will be back tomorrow around 9am for breakfast, I will be doing bacon, eggs and hash browns.

I have also managed to do 3 loads of washing and get it all on the line as it has been a nice warmish day although I am not sure if it all will dry but we will see.

Well that is all from me for today………………..see you tomorrow

How hard is it to do what’s right?

How hard is it to know what’s right?

For far too many these things are not known or too hard to find and near impossible to do, however, if more people took the time to think about what’s the right thing to do and followed through doing what’s right then they may find they are happier people.

I try myself to do what’s right, yes there are times when I fail but at least I try.