Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
To travel to my home town, the place of my birth, would take a number of days by car. For a family with small children that journey would likely stretch to over a week. When I was a child, the cost of plane fares was also exorbitant, hence our family rarely visited our relatives in Far North Queensland. I remember a special occasion when our family did make the trip by plane. Perhaps it was my first plane trip. It was very exciting.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
Canberra’s coronavirus restrictions were eased slightly at the end of last week and will be further eased at the end of this week. Some restrictions will remain but we can now connect again with friends and family, albeit in small numbers. Stay-at-home provisions have applied since Delta arrived here nine weeks ago. During that time, I have taken great comfort from the competent, calm, compassionate and informative approach of public health officials in our local government. The health team and the government could not have been any clearer about what they needed us to do, and because no sector of the community were given preferential treatment over another, Ken Behrens* largely did what was asked of us. I think it is fair to say that at times our Chief Health Officer, Dr Kerryn Coleman, outshone others in the spotlight. I’m such a fan.
One of the many strategies to help us open safely has been to get as many Canberrans vaccinated as quickly as possible. Just prior to lockdown, approximately 48 percent of the Canberra population over 12 years of age had had one dose of one of the Covid vaccines, while just shy of 25 percent of us were fully vaccinated. Now 98 percent of us have had one dose and 83 percent of eligible Canberrans are already fully vaccinated. Howzat! Thankfully the rest of Australia is not far behind us. Unfortunately, a small number of Canberrans have died over this period and our hearts go out to their families. The vaccines are very effective but as we have learned there still can be breakthrough infections. There is also likely a growing group of Canberrans whose vaccine protection is waning and who, therefore, will need to get a top up quite soon. It does sound like there will be no rest yet for the public health team and frontline health workers who have been working so tirelessly to keep us safe.
Today, my shout-out is to Canberra’s health workers, and Dr Coleman in particular. Thanks for caring. As Dr Coleman is originally a sand-groper (that is, someone from Western Australia), I thought I would choose my Friday song from a singer/songwriter from that state. Today, I have chosen Andrew Winton, performing his song Number’s Down. How apt, don’t you think? The chorus is very easy, so sing it with me.
Take care, everyone.
Kind Regards. Tracy.
* Each day over the last nine weeks, members of the ACT government have held a press conference to keep Canberrans informed of how the Delta outbreak was unfolding and the necessary steps to keep us safe. During one of these press conferences, there was a sub-titling error that referred to Canberrans as Ken Behrens and henceforth the name has been adopted wholeheartedly by the Canberra community.
Welcome to my regular (and early) Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you. Today, I am going to get nostalgic.
I can’t remember a time when the house wasn’t dilapidated. The house sat upon tall timber pylons three storeys high, but there was nothing underneath it. The story goes that there were plans for a shop below the house but those plans never came to fruition. To the passerby, it might have looked like a giant birdhouse. This was fitting because two older ladies lived in that house. The younger was my grandmother, the elder was her mother, my great grandmother. My grandfather lived up the road. That was odd, but odd is normal for us.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
For reasons that I am ashamed of now, I decided not to send my children to our local primary school. Instead, I decided to send them to a school out of area. Anyway, for entirely different reasons, it turned out to be a good decision. At first it seemed that we might not be able to get our eldest child into our chosen school. This was quite distressing for our son because he wanted to go to the school with the rocket in the playground. My husband and I also checked out the Catholic primary school in the same suburb as some of my child’s friends would also be attending that school. I was upfront with the principal of the Catholic school about our lack of religion. I explained to him that my child was interested in dinosaurs, planetary science and, you know, evolution. The principal was quick to reassure me that the religious education was only a small component of the curriculum and that the bible was not taught as some literal truth but more as guiding stories. I thought that was very enlightened. I can’t imagine getting that type of response these days. However, at that time, almost half the children who went to Catholic schools weren’t actually Catholic. In the end, a place came up at the rocket ship school and so a temper tantrum was avoided and I did not have to deal with my own internal conflict.
Welcome to another Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
It’s been a newsie week which leaves me with many options for this week’s Friday song. We had the sudden announcement of the Aussie government’s cancellation of its French sub contract, and instead the government will purchase you-beaut US nuclear-powered subs. Oh wait, the French have nuclear-powered subs but we didn’t want nuclear subs at the time. Did we even give the French a chance to bid for the new contract? Maybe not. Consequently, and apologies to the French, ABBA’s Waterloo and Fat Boy Slim’s Weapon Of Choice, immediately popped into my head!
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
There are no winners in this pandemic. Today I would like all of us to spare a thought for our friends with loved ones who are currently undergoing medical treatment for life-threatening illnesses. Now just imagine that you couldn’t be with your loved one in hospital due to Covid visitor restrictions. Next, imagine that hospitals and emergency services are so overwhelmed with Covid patients that medical treatment cannot be provided in a timely fashion for all those in need. That would be unbelievably traumatic. It’s happening. My heart goes out to anyone in that situation.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
Music when Soft Voices die (To –) by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
My music selection today is Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K 622: II. Adagio, performed by Thomas Friedli. For J.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
I’ve been distracted recently by world, domestic and local crises over the past few weeks. This week, however, I would like to return to my musical journey around the world. Shall we go the Philippines today for a song about misspent youth and family reconciliation? In some cultures, children are expected to rebel, in other cultures it is the reverse. Rebellion is kids’ way of saying, “I’m not you.” Anyway, the song is Anak (meaning child), written and performed by 70s folk singer, Freddie Aguilar. Lyrics in Tagalog are included in the video so that you can sing along. Enjoy.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
It has been a distressing week here and across the world for many reasons. These troubles have been the subject of extensive reporting so I won’t go into those matters now. Instead, I would like to acknowledge the incredible work that everyone has been doing in Australia to respond to the growing Delta outbreak here.
The New South Wales government has made some mistakes which has allowed the virus to grow exponentially. We don’t know whether it would have been possible to contain it anyway, but they hesitated. This, however, in no way diminishes the huge effort of frontline and other essential workers, as well as Sydney residents who are turning out to get vaccinated, to try to minimise infections. Thank you all. Great jab.
Many will know that the Sydney outbreak has made its way to Canberra. Here in Canberra, we have just completed our first week of quiet time and movement restrictions. Canberrans have been re-organising their lives, monitoring the growing number of exposure sites, getting tested and otherwise staying at home.
I don’t often heap praise on politicians, but I hope you forgive me this one indulgence. I have been greatly impressed by the responsiveness and swift actions of our local government to keep Canberrans safe. It has been a huge effort and I really, really appreciate it. Of course, I cannot speak for those who have been in quarantine after having caught the virus or who have been a close or casual contact. Our youngest son’s timing was impeccable, missing “the excitement” by a mere hour. Commiserations to those who haven’t been so lucky. I hope you have friends and family who can keep the chips and chocolates flowing to you.
Speaking of chips and chocolates, my eldest son who is in his mid 20s, got tired of waiting for the Pfizer vaccine, so he got the AstraZeneca yesterday. He rang my GP and it took him less than 24 hours to get an appointment to get the jab. Despite my other son’s lucky escape, he has decided to wait for the former. It will be an experiment to see who is fully vaccinated first. There is one thing for sure, and that is, whoever wins will have to go out and get the chips and chocolates. Given the difficulties in obtaining grocery deliveries, I wonder whether this is a reason some people are breaking quarantine in Sydney?
Anyway, I need to turn off the wondering and the wandering for a while. Let’s have a song. Is Norah Jones singing Come Away With Me acceptable? Take us away, Norah.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
I’ve almost run out of groceries (no bread or milk left) as I normally get them on Thursday or Friday. Food doesn’t last long in my house with three men and one anxious, stress-eater woman residing therein. I knew I should have gone food shopping yesterday, but the sun was shining so I walked instead. So of course, a Covid case turned up in Canberra (Australia) today – the first local to Canberra case of community transmission in over a year. Anyhoo, this afternoon Canberra went into a snap 7-day lockdown with only a few hours notice. As soon as I heard the news, I dashed across town to get the fish for the dog with the copper storage disease. Unfortunately, I didn’t get into the shopping centre because it was a shit-fight for parking (and no doubt shopping trolleys) so I returned home instead. I also briefly cruised past the little local shopping centre I often frequent but it was pandemonium there too. I did manage to get some Turkish bread from the local takeaway so the lads should be good for a day or so.
Reflections of An Untidy Mind 