I just realised this morning that I didn’t post yesterday even though I had started to write a post, I guess with Leo being so demanding and the washing and such I just forgot to get back to the post and finish it off and hit publish oh well such is life…………so here is what I wrote yesterday with what I am writing today and today I will remember to post it.

Dawson is getting used to his new driver but not without another drama in his mother’s eyes, the new driver has the child lock on the doors and Michelle (his mum) rang up and complained to the school. However, she was told it was a new policy introduced and there was nothing that could be done about it, Michelle was arguing because the boys are all teenagers but they are teenagers with problems hence why they are going to a special school. She is also still complaining about the route she takes to the school, but really the woman has to do what she things is best and what does it really matter.

It’s another hot day here in Newie I manage to do all the washing and get it on the line before it got too hot, although inside the house it is not that hot.

Last weekend Dave manage to get the hands free in my car to work and I have already answered a couple of calls using it, I am so happy so thank you baby brother.

Now to Sunday, well I manage to have a sleep in this morning, I got up at 8am and that is a sleep in for me since during the warmer months I am usually up, dressed and doing stuff by 6-6.30am. Hence the reason I often feel like a nap in the afternoon, but having to pick Leo up makes it difficult and by the time I get home from getting him I usually don’t feel like doing so.

Tim wants to go out when he gets up to do stuff I am not sure what but he was talking like he wants me to go out with him, sometimes I do wonder why he needs me with him oh well will worry about that when he gets up which will be in a couple of hours I expect.

Mum was telling me last night that her and Sandra went down and listed all the stuff that will stay in the motor home when they sell it, now she just has to get dad to advertise it and to stop talking about it and do it. He keeps saying they have to do this or that before he advertises it and mum is like just advertise it already and we will get the things done because advertising it and selling it are two different things.

He is worrying a lot about money and mum says well if you sell the motor home that will give us some money. Mum doesn’t worry about money as much she can’t see the point worrying will not change things so why bother is mums point of view and have to say I agree with her. I also don’t worry about such things, in fact there are very few things I worry about I just take each day as it comes.

I can smell something sweet but not sure what it is or where it is coming from, might be pancakes I am not sure but it is a nice smell…………kind of making me hungry………oh well.

I guess I have rambled on enough for one post so I will now post this with some pictures of Hawaii………

 

Now let us talk about life aboard a U-Boat, well it was crowded and living conditions poor, each war patrol could take anywhere between 3 weeks to 6 months. During this time the crew were not able to bathe, shave or change their clothes. So the smell would have been terrible as well.

The crew as made up of specialists and seamen, they needed a radioman, a torpedo man and a machine man these men were responsible for the operation and maintenance of the equipment. Then there were the general duty tasks such as loading the torpedoes, standing watch on the bridge and operating the deck guns. There days were divided into three 8 hour shifts, one for sleeping, one for regular duties and one for other tasks.

The specialist crew had three 4 hour shifts between 8am and 8pm and two 6 hour shifts during the night. One of the worst duties was standing watch during a storm as the harsh North Atlantic environment meant that icy waves constantly swept over the conning tower completely submerging the boat at times. The crewman was secured by a safety line to prevent them being washed overboard.

Of course there was no privacy on board only the captain had any privacy with a simple curtain separating his quarters.

Food aboard a U-Boat was another interesting topic, at the start of a mission as much food as possible was cramped into every nook and cranny, including one of the toilets. They would have the best foods available to them including fresh meat, sausages, bead, fresh vegetables & fruit. However, because they only had a small refrigerators the food would spoil quickly especially in the damp environment.

The bread would sprout white fungi, which the crews nicknamed as “rabbits” due to the white fuzzy appearance. Canned goods supplemented by a soy based filler called Bratlingspulver, was issued by the military for U-Boat crews, the crew referred to it as diesel food due to the constant exposure of diesel exhaust which of course affected the taste.

Going to the toilet was no simple task, there was only one toilet until the food stored in the other was used up, and there was between forty to fifty crews sharing the only toilet. The flush system consisted of a hand pump where the contents of the waste was hand pumped into the ocean after each use. Using the toilet was prohibited when stalking an enemy as it was feared that the noise of clanking metal of floating debris would alert the enemy to the presence of a U-Boat.

The time spent on the submarines took its psychological toll with many crews painting a vision of emptiness. Months would pass and there were no trees, no hills and no landfill where one could place his feet, except on the deck of the U-Boat. The only excitement was when they were hunting an enemy ship, or when they were being hunted themselves, crews passed time by listening to a record-player built into the boat or by playing cards and organising some weird games to keep their minds occupied.

By the end of the war patrol, crews would emerge with long beards, soiled uniforms and an array of other obnoxious physical characteristic. It was after seeing the men returning from months of sea, Donitz when seeing his men returning said he knew what life aboard a U-Boat was like. As if I feel unless a person was there they really had no idea what life on a U-Boat was like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good morning all it is a lovely wet kind of day here in my part of the world. I have been up about half an hour and done bugga all so far, not going to see nanna today mum has to take her car into the mechanics as on Sunday after leaving Dave’s place their back passenger side door would not close. Dad had to tire it shut and even then a couple of times it came open a tad, scaring Temika a little. So today it goes in to have that problem fixed, then mum has to take Dad down to Belmont hospital for his weekly rehap appointment, then she will have to go and get Dave for lunch as she is taking him to work this morning so they can have use of his car of course at some point she will have to go and pick her car up again also. So mum’s dad is too full to try and go see nanna, we will go tomorrow instead.

Yesterday Dawson had a new taxi driver pick him up and take him to school, the taxi picks up 4 boys and takes them to Wakefield school, now the old driver used to pick the boy up in Hamilton first than the others who are all around Gateshead area and go to Wakefield through Warners Bay and Teralba but this new woman did it all back to front and went out via Edgeworth and the boys ended up being late even though she picked Dawson up at 8.05am.

Also when mum walked him out to the car as the woman wanted to meet mum, mum mentions that some days she isn’t there but her husband is and if they are not going to be home when he gets dropped off in the afternoon her daughter who only lives 4 doors away will be there to meet Dawson. Well the woman went on and on that she would not be able to pick Dawson up if mum wasn’t there and she wouldn’t be able to drop him off if mum wasn’t there as mum is the only one on the list. Now I will explain that it is the house not people in it that she has to go by as long as an adult over 21 is there that is all that matters as the boys are all teenagers and considered old enough to know if the person there is someone they know. However, mum had to make a number of phone calls to arrange for dad and Sandra’s names to be added to the list and it was while she was making these calls that it was mentioned that the women didn’t need their names on any list as long as someone was there to see Dawson off and greet him in the afternoon.

This is the first new driver they have had in 3 years, also when mum asked her for her phone number she goes you should have it didn’t it come up when I rang last night mum said it may have but she didn’t take notice, she didn’t give it to mum though. However, she rang mum a bit later to give it to her and to tell mum that she now had dad and Sandra on her list.

Dawson told mum that when they dropped his friend off his older brother came out to greet him and the woman wouldn’t leave him there as the boy’s mother wasn’t home, she had gone to pick up his younger siblings from school, the woman rang her boss to get permission to leave him there.

It must be the first time the woman has driven teenagers, as the rule she was so worried about are more in place for younger children. Mum said she understood that the woman was only doing what she thought was right but still it was a pain in the bum.

Also when she picked the boys up in the afternoon she drove back via Teralba and Warners Bay which is a lot faster than the way she went in the morning. Dawson didn’t like her much but that may change Dawson does at times take a while to get used to people.

Now for a post about my back, many years ago a neighbour of mine commented that I had a sway back I had not heard the term before and wondered at first what she meant but I used my common sense to figure it out and now with the help of the internet I can check if I guessed right and of course I did.

Now back than I wasn’t overweight or anything and it was just the way I was, I knew that some things would make my bum poke out and look bigger than it was so I would try and stay away from those clothes.

I was never told by my a doctor or anyone that it was due to bad posture although now that it is more noticeable because I am a bigger woman I have been told I need to change my posture which is not easy to do after 50 years.

Also my back has had the same curvature all my life so I reckon I have had this condition all my life, it is only now that it is a problem and I know it is because of my weight but that isn’t something that is going to change overnight.

Looking on the internet I have discovered that it has a name lordosis which refers to the normal inward curvature of the lumbar and cervical regions of the spine but in some people the can be excessive or hyperlordosis and this is a swayback. Everything I have read says that treatment for hyperlordosis is not easy and involves months of physio and that doesn’t always work if the condition has been present since childhood, also the longer you have had the condition it is harder to correct.

In fact no doctor has ever mentions lumbar hyperlordosis to me, I can tell you what I do know, I need pillows to support my back while I am sitting here writing my blog posts or using my laptop and I need back support when I am out shopping and I can only walk a short distance if I am carrying stuff before the back pain starts.

I also know that when I am wearing dresses and some pairs of pants I need a belt to pull everything in and make what I am wearing look nice.

So have you heard of a sway back?

Maybe you have a sway back.

Guess what I did this morning, something I rarely do, I slept in till nearly 9am what the hell is with that. I don’t sleep that late I must have needed the sleep anyway it is now 9.50am and I am at last getting around to writing something after spending the last hour wasting time on good ole Facebook.

I am going to write a little this morning about another first of the First World War this time I think I will write about the submarine do you know anything about submarines, I don’t and I didn’t know they were first used during WW1 but now I do.

Ok that is not completely true there are mentions of submarines dating as far back as 1620 when a Dutchman by the name of Cornelius Jacobszoon Drebbel invented the first submarine, but back then submarines where used to explore under the water.

Let’s move on to say 1776 when the first military submarine was built it was called the “turtle” and was a hand-powered egg shaped device designed by the American David Bushnell, it held only 1 man. A few years later in around 1800 the French Navy built a human-powered submarine it was called the “Nautilus”it also had a sail for use on the surface and so was the first known dual propulsion submarine. It was capable of using mines to destroy warships and did so during demonstrations. However, the French and the British gave up with the experiment of submarines in 1804.

Before we leave the history of the submarines and move onto their use during the First World War I will tell you a little about their use during the American Civil War because I have so many American followers. The Union was first to use a submarine, they used the French-designed Alligator it was the first U S Navy sub and was also the first to have compressed air and an air filtration system. It was the first to carry a diver lock allowing the diver to plant mines on enemy ships.

Of course the Confederate States of America also had submarines one of the first was the CSS H.L.Hunley named for it’s designer and chief financier Horace Lawson Hunley. However, the first was a 30 foot long Pioneer which sank a target schooner using a towed mine during tests on Lake Pontchartrain but it was not used in combat. It was scuttled after New Orleans was captured and in 1868 was sold for scrap; however, the similar Bayou St John Confederate Submarine is preserved in the Louisiana State Museum.

I could go on but this is not a post about the American Civil War so I won’t.

So let’s move onto the First World War the first submarines the first submarines were the U-Boats the U stood for ” Unterzeeboot” which means undersea boat the first U-boat was the U1 is was built in 1906 and the second was the U2 built in 1908 by this time the French had a submarine force of 60 boats and the British almost as many so Germany finally took notice.

At the start of the war Germany had 48 submarines either in service or under construction but only 29 were operational. In the first 10 weeks of the conflict they sank five British cruisers and between October 1916 and January1917 1.4 million tons of allied shipping was lost to the U-Boats. However, the loses diminished when the allies started escorting their convoys with merchant ships surrounded by military vessels. During the war Germany built 360 U-Boats of which 178 were lost.

All countries wanted submarines but Germany was a head of the game and their U-Boats carried 6 torpedos and a powerful deck gun as well.

The British need a countermeasure against the U-Boat, sound detection and gear and depth charges were still in their infancy and this mean the only way to sink a submarine was by either gunfire or ramming it. This meant that he U-Boat had to be on the surface, the solution to this problem was the Q-Ship, it was one of the closest guarded secrets of the war. The Q-Ship was also known as a “U-Boot-Falle” (U-Boat trap) it was an old looking tramp steamer with hidden guns and torpedoes.

It was close to unsinkable due to the load of wooden caskets and wood or cork, it’s job was too lure the U-Boat into attack when the U-Boat surfaced the Q-Ships hidden weapons were deployed and the White Ensign would be hoisted.

I could go on but this post has taken a bloody long time to write due to me having to stop and go over to Natasha’s to take over some Ritalin for Leo then I had to go to the shops and get some Voltaren tablets for Kathy and take them to her at work, then I stopped to have something to eat and now I am going to post,

 

Good morning world it is another lovely day here in my part of the world, I am starting this as I wait for mum to pick me up we are going to see nanna today as it is Wednesday that is all I have planned for today.

So it the first of October today and I am expecting to see a lot of Christmas stuff in the stores from this week, I love Christmas but really it annoys me when we see Christmas stuff in the stores so early I think from the start of November would be early enough, what do others think.

So I just went and unpacked the dishwasher because it was bugging me that I hadn’t done it yet, it is one of the first things I do when I get up of a morning, just like mum one of the first things she does is unpack the dishwasher.

I posted a photo last night on Facebook of my mum’s biological father just to see if anyone knew who it was my daughter Natasha got it right and my sister Sandra thought it might be Merve too but my cousins didn’t know they thought it was their dad who I must say does look a lot like his father so not a bad guess. This is the photo in question.

I might post a few more old photos just so see who knows who they are, I like old photos, I scanned a number of them onto my computer but would love to have more of them I will have to ask mum if she has more that I can have to scan onto the computer.

Oh yeah on Friday I bought myself a pair of Harem pants and guess what, they don’t fit too small so I will be giving them to someone as a present I wasn’t sure if they would fit but I got the largest size and I was unable to try them on first so just took a chance. I will have to keep looking for some that will fit me.

While Blain was over the other night he brought his Xbox with him and Tasha set it up in Tim’s office for him to use as we only have two tv’s now the one in the loungeroom and the one in Tim’s office, anyway Tim came home from work saw him playing it and told me to move it to the spare room I reminded him that we don’t have a tv in the spare room anymore. So yesterday morning he tells me that he would like to go and by another tv for the his room and the tv in there can be moved to the spare room and that way the boys can watch telly in there. I felt like saying well you will need to get Foxtel in that room if you want the boys to watch telly in there but I didn’t I know Tim he would say let them watch DVD’s which they won’t but no point in arguing over it.

The other night a photo fell off the wall the hook bit at the back broke so now I have to find a way to repair it or get another frame. Tim would say just get another frame and I will if I can’t fix this frame but it is nice frame and I would rather fix it than toss it.

Yes another rambling post about nothing much at all I will write more interesting posts again but don’t ask me when as I don’t know………….lol

The other day while she was here Jessica looked around the loungeroom and says that this stuff animal and that stuffed animal are hers, I said yes your point well she had no point she just wanted to point out they were hers. I have a number of stuffed animals hanging around the loungeroom why well because it is better than having them stored away in a box somewhere. Well I think it is and it is my house and if I want to hang stuffed toys around the place I will.

Oh yeah when Blain was here the other night he says to me you have photos of Leo when he was a baby but not me, so I had to take him around and point out all the photos of him as a baby, he didn’t realise I had so many and liked that I had one of him and his parents as a newborn. The one I don’t have many baby photos of is Summer but I am working on it.

So been to see nanna she was well, while we were there the physio came around and rubbed her arms and hands and did some arm exercises to loosen up her joints.

Now to post this

 

Good morning world how is everyone on this lovely Tuesday morning, well it is Tuesday morning in my part of the world but not in other parts this I know because I am wise and knowledgeable, ok I’m not either but it sounded good didn’t it.

At the moment I have both Blain & Leo here playing down the hallway and in about an hour I will have Sydney-May and Summer joining them so a full house for me today.

Jessica came over as Leo was annoying the hell out of her so she brought him here, it was just lucky that Blain was here and that later the girls will be here. Although Blain and Leo have a habit of fighting after they have been together for a while but at the moment it’s all good.

Tim is off till just after lunch when he leaves he is doing afternoon work all this week, I will be having the girls while Kathy-Lee is at work for a couple of hours so sometime just after lunch all should leave and I will have a quiet house for a while, hopefully.

Oh you know what I saw in the stores, well one store last Friday Christmas stuff that is what and even though I liked them and wouldn’t mind some of what I saw I thought it is still only September, I checked the prices of the stuff and most of the things were under $20 now if they stuff was expensive I could get having them out earlier so that people could layby them and pay them off but that wasn’t the case. Usually we see Christmas stuff in the stores from October and yes I know last week was close to October but still it was September just saying.

I was speaking to mum last night and yes I know I talk to her every night for something like 20 minutes and yesterday it was the third time I talked to her during the day but not the point. She was saying how dad gets annoyed with her when she wants to go to be at 8.30 at night but when mum says she is heading off to bed that doesn’t mean getting up and going straight to bed. She has to make sure the dishwasher is packed and put on and she likes to clean the kitchen as well as doing a few other things it usually takes about half and hour from the time she says she is going to bed till the times she gets into bed.

Anyway mum said she told dad that she thinks she does pretty good for a 74yr old woman, she is up usually between 6-6.30am every day sometimes earlier she is watching young children every day and drives grandchildren to daycare and school two, three or four days a week. She takes care of dad and is the one who does most of the housework so if she is feeling done in by 8.30pm she should be able to go to bed without anyone complaining that it is too early.

Dad usually says up till around 11pm but he also doesn’t get up till mum wakes him with his breakfast ready for him around 9am, three hours after mum has been up and busy.

You know if mum was to lose dad I think she would cope pretty well after a bit but if dad was to lose mum I think he would fall apart and find it harder to go one without her there.

Even though both my parents are in their 70’s I find it hard to see them as elderly, more mum than dad she is so busy and full of life, honestly at times I think mum has more energy and get up and go than me and I am 22yrs younger than me.

Jessica just had me go and get Macca’s for breakfast for everyone cost $33 but not bad when you consider that was breakfast for 3 adults and 4 children.

Yes the girls are here now I have been writing this for close to 1 ½ hours but I am at last finished and will now post.

Here we are at the start of another week, which makes me wonder what day of the week do you consider the start of the week, for me it’s Monday but I know some people consider Sunday to be the start of the week.

Did I mention that while in Hawaii, my nice white pants split and when I got home I stitched them up well today I chose to wear them and as soon as I sat down they split again, I still have them on but when or if I go out today I will have to change them and when I take them off this afternoon I will bin them. I really am going to have to buy some new shorts and ¾ pants over the next few weeks.

This week Tim is on afternoon work all week it is his first week as a permanent driver with his own line/run. We will have Blain staying over tonight, I love it when I see him but I hope he is ok, he gets bored he very easy unlike Leo who is able to make his own fun. Blain likes his Xbox which we don’t have; Leo will use the computer to find games to play. Blain has a habit of saying he wants to go home after an hour or so. I so love seeing him but I don’t want him to feel like he is being forced to stay here. I think Blain would often be happier if he could come over during the day when Leo is here and go home at night but his mum always says he wants to come over. I think he says he does but as I said after an hour or so he gets bored and wants to go home.

I would like to have Sydney-May stay over one night but I worry if I do that she will get bored as well as I don’t have a lot of girl toys here since I rarely have the girls over and when they do come they like to watch cartoons and play outside with Leo who is usually here anyway at the same time.

I can’t imagine not seeing my grandchildren but I know I am lucky and a lot of grandparents don’t get to see their grandchildren for many reasons, like they live too far away or for some reason the parents don’t want them to see the children.

Years ago I would get a little annoyed that my mum would favour Dawson over the other grandchildren but now I realise that this is because he is more like their son than their grandson.

I also understand that the more you see a grandchild the more of a connection you will have with the child, when Blain was a baby and toddler I saw a lot of him and we were really close but then he started school and I stopped seeing him as much and the connection faded. With Leo even though he is 1^st class at school I still see him nearly every day of the week as I pick him up from school and still likes to sleep over one night a week.

I always say the grandchild has to want to spend the night, I never want to fight the child or make them stay over if they do not want to do so..

I remember many years ago my sister Sue thought that mum and dad loved my children more than hers but that wasn’t the case, it was more that they saw my children weekly and they would see her children a few times a year. They also saw Jeannie’s children quite often but not as often as they saw mine and it is as I have said the more you see the grandchild the close to them you are.

Mum and dad do not feel that they know much about Sue’s children and they do not know how to change that, Sue’s children are all grown adults now and have their own lives and mum knows that means they don’t have the time to see them and she accepts it for what it is. Although I know that both my parents would like to know them better.

My parents have 17 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren and they love and care for all of them they just don’t know all of them that well.

No post yesterday, why, well I just didn’t feel like writing anything this often happens if I read blogs before writing my post because I usually spend around 2-3hrs reading blogs. This is why I prefer to write my post before starting to read other blogs.

Yesterday Tim took the trolley which I thought was his but turns out to be the one dad has been looking for, for the last couple of months to Jessica’s to help her get rid of some large items that don’t work or are broken, she is having a curb side collection this week.

Well after he had moved the stuff out to the curb the old lady who lives up the front went down and told Jessica she had to move the stuff and not have it in front of her house, she said that Jessica should have put the stuff out the front of her own place as they (the council) would collect it from there. Jessica doesn’t do confrontation well (she is like me) but she told the woman that she was told by Compass Housing to put it there so she did. Jessica said she was shaking when the woman left from nerves and she wished her dad had still been there but the woman properly waited till after she saw him leave to approach Jessica.

Today is another lovely spring day here in my part of the world and I have nothing to do at all today which is great I have blogs to read and letters to answer thankfully I only have 6 letters left to answer and hope to get through them today ready to post off tomorrow.

I was speaking to mum last night as I do every night, anyway she was telling me she got a phone call yesterday morning from a mobile number she didn’t know. So she answers the phone and the caller says “Mavis” mum replies yes and the woman tells her she is Hazel, Judy’s sister it took mum a moment to know who she was. It was Dawson’s mothers Aunt, well the woman went on to have a bitch about Michelle (Dawson’s mum) saying that she was holding her mother prisoner and not letting her make phone calls or leave the house, all a bunch of rubbish and of course mum defended Michelle but the whole time she was on the phone she was thinking why are you ringing me it has nothing to do with me I am not related to any of you. At one point mum said that it had nothing to do with her but the woman just ignored that and continued to go on and on.

Really Michelle has a strange family, this isn’t the first time that this woman has rung mum and we have no idea why she rings mum. Mum is not a rude woman and wouldn’t just say it’s nothing to do with me and hang up but it is how she feels.

Ok that is all I have for today, so I will stop boring you all now and post this.

Good morning all what a lovely day it is here in Australia be it a bit on the cold side but it is suppose to warm up if I remember rightly, ok just checked the weather channel and it is supposed to get a little warmer but is also supposed to rain…………..oh well I am not going out today.

Now last night I was feeling pretty sick and went to bed pretty early and all was good but during the night I wake up to go to the toilet and look at the clock and it’s not there, what the hell. I get up go to the toilet turn my bedside light on and what the hell, Tim has disconnected it. Now I know that since we returned from Hawaii it has had a buzzing sound in it and it can be annoying but I didn’t think it was that bad, however, I know Tim was really annoyed with it and had told me he wanted to get rid of it and get a new clock. It was about 20 years old but still I wasn’t going to toss it till I had a replacement.

As everyone knows we just returned for a short holiday in Hawaii, you may or may not know we flew Hawaiian Airlines to get there but did you know that Hawaiian Airlines is the largest airline in Hawaii and the 8^th largest commercial airline in the United States.

Hawaiian Airlines was founded in 1929 under the name of Inter-Island Airways and flew between Maui and the Big Island. It changed its name to Hawaiian Airlines in 1941. It was at this time that all inter-Island traffic was placed under military control due to the Second World War.

Did you know that Hawaiian Airlines is considered one of the safest airlines there is due to their flawless safety and premium service.

Today Hawaiian Airlines carries an average of 8 million people a year and serves 20 domestic and international destinations in the pacific region. In North America it provides daily service to Hawaii from more cities than any other airline.

We enjoyed flying with Hawaiian Airlines and would fly with them again.