We lost a remarkable Australian

What makes people what they are? Some people rise to challenges and do great things. Others do wonderful things without the initial challenge and some end up in a life of crime, or just struggling to get along. Is it our upbringing? The country we live in? The experiences we have? Or maybe just in our nature.

 

A few weeks ago, Dame Elizabeth Murdoch died at age 103. She truly was a remarkable Australian. I think she was probably our biggest philanthropist, but she alway said that anyone could give money, you have to do something too. She mentions this in the video below.

 

 

Dame Elizabeth was born into a privilaged family, went to a private boarding school and in 1928 married quite young to a much older man. This man was Sir Keith Murdoch a successful businessman. Unfortunately, he died in 1952.

 

Dame Elizabeth had already started her life of philanthropy before she got married. In fact, in the video above she says that it was at age 16 that she went to a children's hospital and was so upset by it, she felt she had to do something. Click here for more information.

 

She could have given up and mourned her husband for the rest of her life, but instead, she devoted herself to the service of others. Every video clip I have seen of her she is always smiling and laughing.

 

Maybe she had a very long and successful life because she was always happy and positive and she was serving others, not always receiving from others.

 

I read once that there are three things that people need to live a happy life. The first is to have something or someone to care for, the second is to have something to look forward to and I can't remember the third. Please let me know if you know what the third one is.

 

Back to us - do you have someone or something to care for? Do you have something to look forward to? Do you help others? Do you look on the bright side of things? I am looking forward to receiving your thoughts.





It's been one year

One whole year since I moved into my new house. When I got to be 50 and then over 50 I thought the time had come to demolish my old house and build a new one.

 

I had planned to put a picture of the old house here and the new one lower down, but the add photo function is not working! Sorry.

Houses are like relationships and just about everything else in life. They need work. I bought the original house about 25 years ago and had always intended to demolish it and build a new one. Because of this, I didn't do the work or maintenance on it that I should have. In the end I had to knock it down - only one hotplate on the cooktop worked, the hot water system broke for the third time in as many months (I didn't bother fixing it up in the end), the plumbago in the front yard had invaded the roof tiles and there was a big hole in the ceiling in one of the rooms! Clearly, a very unloved house.

 

So, it was time to start again. I had been designing a new house in my head for just about all of the 25 years before I demolished the old one, so I took this to a designer who turned it into something really good. Then I found a builder, built the house and moved in one year ago today.

 

Moving in doesn't mean it is finished. There are still quite a few things to do, for example, put vents in the roof to let all the hot air out and to connect the airconditioner up properly. I just have to keep on at the builder to make sure he finishes. I have heard that builders often forgo their last payment, because it is not worth finishing for them.

 

Back to relationships - I have made sure that I have a very good relationship with my builder so that he actually WILL finish, although things have been moving at glacial pace since I moved in. He keeps on saying he will do things, but keeps on putting them off.

 

I think now is the time to start ringing him every few days to keep him on task, but then again I have to do that while not losing his good will. I know he likes me and likes to meet, so that is one way to keep him on task. Then again, maybe he keeps drawing it out so we can meet more often!

Hot, hot, hot

How hot can it be? We've just had almost a week of more than about 37 degrees here (more than about 100F). That's hot!

Christmas Day was very hot and I was very lucky to be able to spend it in an airconditioned house!

For those of you who don't live in Western Australia, here is how lots of us start each Christmas Day. We go to the beach, have a glass of champagne with breakfast and cool off in the water. Marvellous!

It was very hot all the way through to New Year's Day. I survived in my beautiful new house with the airconditioning on. I am a bit worried about my next electricity bill! Still, it was beautiful inside and like a furnace outside. I read several books. The first and second best was "Catch Me" by Lisa Gardner. It is about a woman in her late 20s who approaches Dective DD Warren to find her killer - she is going to be murdered in four days' time. DD Warren becomes involved and tries to work out who it will be. It was riveting reading! I couldn't put it down.

Then there was "Oh Dear Sylvia" by Dawn French. It was a total change of pace - a little bit of humour, a little bit of nastiness and a lot of discovering that Sylvia was a multi-layered person, who in the end did things for the right reason. It made me think of why people do things and sometimes everyone else thinks that what someone else does is wrong, or mean, or horrible, but there may be a reason behind it that is none of those things.

Next was another dectective mystery by John Connelly called "Burning Soul". This one was about a man called Randall Haight, who had been jailed for murder as a 14 year old. He and a friend had murdered a 14 year old girl and now in the town he lives in another 14 year old girl has gone missing. Someone is sending him photos of the barn where they killed the girl and his secret is now out. Detecitve Charlie Parker has to find out who is sending the photos and who took the girl. Was it Randall Haight? This one only took a couple of days to read, it was so good. I find I always rush through good books like this because I want to find out what happens, but then I get let-down when I finish, because there is no more to read.

After that I went to the library and found another Lisa Gardner book entitled "Love You More". Boy! How good was that? Even better than the first one. I only took about a day to read this one. A mother (a State Trooper near Boston) witnessed the murder of her husband and at the same time found out that her four year old daughter had been kidnapped by the same people. To save her daughter she must confess to the murder! This book too shows that the things people do may not be for the reasons that we think. Detective DD Warren and her partner have to find out why she killed her husband. Towards the end they realise that maybe she didn't and they have to work it all out,

Yesterday I read "Old Filth" by Jane Gardam, which is about a retired international lawyer with a practice in Hong Kong. He was a Raj Orphan, a child born to English parents in the Far East and then sent back to England at the age of about four or five to be fostered and educated. It was a lovely story and completely different from all the others that I had read. I liked his name Old Filth because it stands for Failed in England Try Hong Kong! There is another book from his wife's perspective, "The Man in the Wooden Hat". I haven't read that one yet.

Every Christmas we have two weeks off work and every year I tell myself that I am going to do all sorts of things around the house and every year it is too hot so I just read lots of books. At least I enjoyed myself!