Hello again,

What Saturday already and I've been here almost six days.

The weather has been fine and each day it has crept up to the low seventies by noon, and then dropped down each evening to the low sixties. Evening though is much earlier than at home, it's dark by six o'clock!

I was reading earlier about the Icelandic volcano eruption and the chaos it's causing the airlines. Has it affected the weather too? Looking at the temperatures it seems colder than it was a week ago.

If we think our governments are crap how about this for muddled thinking.
Canberra has sold licences to two of the worlds biggest coalmining industries to invest in open-cast mining on Australia's best and most productive farm land on the Liverpool Plains in NSW. One of the companies is state owned by China. They have 750 coal-fired electricity producing plants. So much for reducing dependancy on fossil fuels. I wonder who is more culperable in this case Australia or China? Already 22 farmers have sold up their land for mega bucks. Obviously they don't really care for the future. However there are many other farmers who are dismayed at the turn of events and what they see as wanton destruction and probable pollution of the land and the water reserves which lie in the rocks.

Spent this morning browsing around the huge three storey shopping mall in the district of Hornsby. It's a fifteen minute drive from here. It's in the middle of the town and houses most of the shops there. But the variety of stores is amazing, everything from post-offices to pet stores, DIY to diners, banks to boutiques, craft stores to Art gallerys as well as Butchers and bakers. Sport shops and gift stores. Also department stores like David Jones and Target. I wish Liverpool had gone for something like this mall instead of the cold and windy Liverpool 1 complex.

Must close dinner is ready.