Ok all I have to offer this Saturday afternoon, is how to waste a dozen eggs…………..

You break a dozen eggs into a large bowl add some double cream and some sour cream and take a stick blender and proceed to beat eggs and then remember you forgot the Parmesan cheese so turn to get it from the fridge and leave stick blender in bowl.

Blender falls over tipping the whole thing over the bench and kitchen floor………………….

Yell to someone to get towels, proceed to clean up and send husband to the shops for another dozen eggs while you clean up the bench and the floor, included having to move the microwave to clean under and behind it where the egg has run to.

Throw all the towels in the washing machine and wash them

Five things Friday, yes don’t faint I am doing it this week why because I woke up and realised I could draft a few posts and have them ready to post when the time arises. So here are this weeks five things.

Colouring pencils

Pens

Letter opener

Tweezers

Mail

Can you guess this weeks theme?

Ok I have time to do a quick post before I have to leave and go get the boys from school, I have been out most of the morning. It was Dawson’s presentation day at his school Wakefield and I of course went to it with mum and dad and Dawson’s mother and her father also went, for the first time in ages Dawson didn’t get an award.

There was a man and a woman talking about aboriginal things he was had to understand and she was hard to hear and they had some boys from another school there playing the didgeridoo.

Also I have posted the photos of Leo’s school again but this time if you look on the right side in front of the principal you will see Leo’s eyes I have written his name next to his eyes, yes his eyes are all you can see of him

Bet you can’t find Leo

Ok it is History Tuesday and this week I am going to write about another unheard of fella his name is Keith William Young aka Billy Young at the tender age of 15 Billy decided to join the army it was July of 1941.

Now it wasn’t any real sense of patriotism or adventure that made him decide to join up it, it was because he was hungry and broke and homeless, Billy was an orphan and the army offered him a food and blanket and five shillings a day.

Billy was a member of the 2/29^th Battalion that went to Singapore with the 8^th Division, he saw a lot of action as the Allies attempted to stop the advancing Japanese Army and was wounded in the thigh.

Two years later Billy found himself in the back of a canvas-covered truck on his was to the Sandakan POW camp as a prisoner of the dreaded Kenpeitai, Nippon’s version of the Gestapo and he was still only a kid at the age of around 17. He still owned nothing except the rags he wore, a soiled and bloody pyjama top, a pair of filthy shorts cut from a canvas kitbag and his greatest treasure a pencil stub.

During his time at Sandakan he often considered attempting to escape, it was after his mate Jimmy Brown wandered off from the airfield construction site with no intentions of escape, however, when they crept back they realised they had been missed and decided to escape to avoid the punishment that would be dealt out to them.

However, they were soon caught and received severe bashings before being taken to Kuching for a trial where they received a four year sentence at the infamous Outram Road Gaol back in Singapore.

Many died at this terrible gaol but both Billy and Jimmy managed to survive although they suffered two years of starvation, malnutrition, tropical diseases, along with bashings and the most inhumane conditions imaginable.

When Bill returned home he was determined to tell the story of what happened to all the servicemen in Sandakan and Ranau, this he did by numerous drawings, paintings, writing stories, poems and speaking at functions.

In 2003 Bill drove alone across from Sydney to Perth, across the Nullabor, to visit our Sandakan Exhibition in August 2003. He took with him six of his original paintings that are part of his “Bamboo Collection”, for display at the exhibition. Bill has also completed numerous other paintings, sketches and drawings depicting his time as a POW at Sandakan and later at Outram Road Gaol in Singapore.

He tells of his experiences as a young man at war who was only 19 years old when he returned from 4 years of hell. He tells his story to the memory, and to commemorate, the 2,500 Australian and British servicemen who died at Sandakan, on the Ranau Death Marches or at Ranau. And he tells of his experiences so as this shameful episode of World War Two will never again be repeated.

He has also written three books,Long Ago in Borneo,Return to a Dark Age and Once Upon a Time in Kuching, about his years as a POW of the Japanese.

In the October 1st 2003 edition of the Borneo Bugle tribute is paid by way of a photographic display of Bill’s visit to the West. The editorial in the newsletter sums up our feelings..

“The visit by Bill Young from Sydney was a special event indeed! He added such substance to both our exhibition and the Sandakan Day Service. Someone said to me, “When we talked to Bill it is as though we have known him and he has been our friend for so many years”. Yes indeed, what a wonderful man he is! Such is the character of Bill that he enthralls both children and adults alike. And the wonderful stories he can tell of his life experiences! As you stand listening to his stories and watch his beaming smile your mind drifts to thoughts of those other great Australians and their British mates who never did return from Sandakan. There are another 2,500 special characters like Bill who lie at Labuan.”

In 2004 Bill was recognised for his services towards the “Sandakan Story” by the Commonwealth of Australia when he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM).

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.