Happy New Year

Fireworks, parties and drinking are the hallmarks of a Melbourne New Years Eve party. The city is alive with people and the police are out in force looking for action. The public transport system runs late to take the party-goers back home en-mass.

Around the suburbs, individuals let off illegal fireworks and numerous local parties are held. I pity the emergency services as inevitably the unlucky and stupid make the doctors, nurses, ambulance people and police lives hell. So here's to all our service personnel. May they have a relatively quiet and peaceful end to 2008

Lets all celebrate the coming of the new year. This year it is time for belt tightening and a reassessment of investments(ie bemoaning the losses and hoping the companies will regain part of their value in 2009).

In Melbourne the hot weather approaches, though this year it seems that New Years Eve will not be a scorcher unlike previous years. Perhaps it will rain and refill the water tanks that are being increasingly needed for the vegie garden.

So to anyone who reads this post, may you have health and happiness. Wealth and "interesting times" as per the chinese proverb can wait for another year. Cherish the small things in life that make it sweet - chocolate (free trade stuff of course) and a good book to read while sitting on the beach. Cheap (if books is sourced from your local library) but worthwhile. Also keeping me employed for the coming year

Monster Crash from U-Tube

This is a great wrap up of the Market Crash. Some people are just sooo clever!!

Christmas Greetings

Red and Green are the traditional colours of Christmas. In Australia the grey-green of the Gum trees give the eye something softer to look on over the harsh glare of the sun. At this time of year we also see flocks of pink and grey Galah parrots to enjoy as they flock over the gum trees. With the continuing drought many more birds seem to be venturing into the city environment so we also see flocks of Sulfur-Crested Cockatoos as well as the Magpies, Honey-Eaters and Rosellas.

They make quite a racket at times. A bit like Parliament question time discussing whether Australia is in a recession or whether we will spend the surplus and get into debt. A bit like the Victorian State Government explaining its solutions to the state's water problems to the people of Northern Victoria.

The current water situation in Victoria hasn't been relieved by the heavy rains over the last week. It will be interesting to see if the North-South pipeline being constructed from the Eildon Dam to Melbourne will ever carry much water. Eildon storage is at 22.71% capacity at the moment, down from 24.6% at the same time last year. Taking water from here is going to be difficult to justify but so will be making 3.5 million Melbournians take stringent water cuts.

It's a pity one cannot transport recalcitrant Melbournians to communities already on stage 4 water restrictions or more to teach them to be community minded and learn what their grandmothers did in times of poverty.

Melbournes water supply is also very low and will continue to drop as we head into summer. So here's to all the Galahs and their noisy chatter. Nature will continue to push us in the right direction, eventually!

I'll just go yell at the teenager to have a 3 minute shower, while looking at our water bill to see if we meet the new target of 155 litres of water per person per day. At least with the installation of water tanks we can still water the garden.