A video for the Grand kids and it ended up on ABC...

A video for the Grand kids and it ended up on ABC...

We did a video for our Grand kids (one of a few) and daughter Katy suggested you might like to send it to ABC Ageless Friendship Singalong she had heard about and we start the video. Lots of fun and a thrill...

 https://www.facebook.com/john.condliffe.31/videos/2869283716501889/

Hi,

Just letting you know that we have now completed the special video clip for our Ageless Friendships Singalong callout.

Once again, a big thank you to you all for submitting a video. We received so many video submissions, from all around Australia, and we really enjoyed watching them all. While we tried to include as many video submissions as possible in the special video clip, we were unable to include them all.

Below is a list of the places where you can watch the special video clip.

ABC Kids website: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ABCKidsCommunity/posts/592575128053063/https://www.facebook.com/ABCKidsCommunity/posts/592575128053063/

YouTube: https://youtu.be/aqttodhnFJchttps://youtu.be/aqttodhnFJc

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ABCTV/status/1265444658823528449

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAtKkXzleQQ/

Regards,

ABC

Worms

Worms

I have kept a worm farm for over twenty years and together with my chooks they nourish my garden provide endless fascination and are great for fishing also.

WORMS....While you are in lock down there are worse things to do!
Start a worm farm or system and always have worms on hand come the summer and ease of restrictions...
I change my layer on my worm farm every 4 to 6 weeks, keep them moist but not wet...From The Kyneton Angling FB page...

https://www.facebook.com/KynetonAnglingClub/

Watch the video...

https://www.facebook.com/john.condliffe.31/videos/2891573330939594/UzpfSTU4NzE5MzgxODA0MTc5MjozMDIwNDQ4OTY0NzE2MjUz/

Love life and whats in it....

Mum the Black Dog....

10.5.20
John Condliffe
Kyneton


Dear Mum,

It's  been a rough couple of months had my fourth Angiogram yesterday which was a PCI trying to clear my right Coronary Artery of a total occlusion near the origin of this artery. The catheters balloon burst on the first attempt into the lumen of the artery compromising the procedure and causing all sorts of mayhem and problems with procedure. Then the wire fed down the lumen could not get back into the artery at distal side of the occlusion.....

This was relayed to me by my brilliant, confident but agitated cardiologist in whispered couched terms just after the procedure as I lay there contemplating the patterns on the labs ceiling...

Mum I was crushed like an eggshell underfoot...at the very least it means another two months of uncertainty, compromise and invalid status. That Black Dog we have talked about before was now laying on my chest, slathering into my face,  sinking it's fangs into my soul...

But hey....as I lay there in my drugged haze, the foul smell of the dogs breath clogging my being...I knew I could not let him feed on my bones...

Mum my heart is compromised yes but it is still good if I give it some help...Mum I now weigh 91 Kgs, am 179 Cm as you know so have a BMI of 28 which is not to bad I suppose means just slightly overweight..Laying there I pledged to reduce my weight by 10kg! Mum I know it may not be realistic but I have to have a go...

The Black Dog slunk down onto the corner of the bed snarling, fangs dripping...

Mum I  also decided to build a north facing Arbor for some orchids and flowering plants in the the back garden...

I have decided to build a new toilet cubicle and combustible toilet for our holiday place on the lake...what do you think? Will talk to Maureen about it!

The dog crawled under the bed whimpering like the cur it is...

Love You Mum
Think of you every day

John

Daughters and Heroinnes...

We have four daughters all who are equally loved and dear to them, all are involved and impacted as we all are by Covid-19.

Alison Primary school teacher doing the bit extra to carry her students along...Hero.

Janice Senior Nurse Manager at a nursing home extra hours, extra vigilance ...Hero.

Angela Mother of five, four at home studying one a Uni student...Hero

But we will focus on our  youngest daughter ...

Trauma Nurse/ Midwife Katy Condliffe
On the leading edge of the Covid 19 response and:
Founder of Nurses in Action,
Board member of World Youth International, https://worldyouth.org.au/
International Volunteer,

https://worldyouth.org.au/

Founder of Spice Inter generational Playgroup

https://m.facebook.com/…/SPICE-Intergenerational-Playgroup…/

Community worker,
Wife, Mother, Family
Katy leads a busy life helping and caring like so many people connected to Kyneton Rotary.
Hero...
Thanks Katy ....Love You...

 Chooks

 

 

Alison, Janice,  Angela 1and 2, Katy, Refugee Al (/James/Leo) and Refugee Peta live down the back of my place.

Angela original was killed by a dog when she flew over the fence she had only been here a little while.... I eventually replac
ed her with Angela one and two because it was too cruel to separate them and introduce only one to the flock. The Angela's' are energetic Chooks and love eating and scratching great layers also. I would not really recommend naming chooks after your kids, but it is two late now! They are Isa Browns...

Refugee (AL)James/Leo-refugee Al for short) came when my daughter Alison and family moved house. She has made friends with refugee Peta and they are the outsiders in the flock. I think she is a Hampshire Red?

Refugee Peta comes from my brothers Peter's (Peter and Kathy)place as they are renovating she is the real outsider her only friend is Peta and me. She gets a cruel pecking from the Australorps and the Isa Browns. But is making her way and it's not as bad lately. I'm not sure what she is?

Alison and Janice are Autralorps an Australian breed descended from dutch Bernvelder chickens big black shiny and beautiful--they know that and are one and two in the pecking order and are very out there bossy and in your face.

Katy is a Dorking Chicken or (Dorka for short) she is quiet, gets on with everybody and is a great layer. She is beautiful but unpretentious. I like her a lot while all around is chaos she is calm and serene...

There are a lot of great websites on the net so you can find out all about chooks there I will not bore you with that stuff.

But a couple of facts sixty five million years ago when the asteroid hit and wiped out the dinosaurs the chickens ancestors survived as did a rat like mammal our ancestor so chickens are an old species who evolved into the animals we know today in the jungles of South East Asia and then all the selective modern breeding. They have shared the same journey as us and are scavengers like we are, maybe that is why we get along.

When God created chickens (and worms but that for a later blog) he was having a good day must have been early in creation week...

Cheers take care.

John Condliffe

PS: See the Video   
https://www.facebook.com/john.condliffe.31/videos/2829886813774913/

Diary of a Cardiac Patient...

Diary of a Cardiac Patient



It crushes you like a nut in a vice, it sucks out all your air, you feel like a sucked  lemon, your skin is like a used chamois...But, mostly it is the fear in the core of your being and gripping you in its arms that your pump, that reassuring background music of your life.... Ka boom, ka boom, ka boom....is going to stop forever....and then their is the pain like someone one has punched you in the chest and left you deeply bruised and in agony which radiates out like a malevolent web into your arm, shoulder back and jaw...Then after is the fatigue which smothers like a wet blanket weighing you down so you just want to lie down and blank out,  your mind is scrambled and confused for a day afterwards meaning nothing meaningful makes sense or can be done...
That what it is like for me...

At to my own situation it is still in flux!
Since going into hospital as an emergency admission on the 6th of March I have had a number of procedures and examinations. I have had two PCIs interventions which failed and have to go back again. The problem with my heart is still patent but is now well mapped, documented and a resolution is possible. I  came home to on the 19th of March with suitable medication and supervision and like a lot of people into self isolation strict isolation.I have had another emergency admission on the 30th of march for two days and was stabilized again.
I am booked into another procedure Per-cutaneous Coronal Intervention (PCI) in the near future, which hopefully will go ahead despite Covid-19. It not a good time to be sick in Australia! Hopefully this final procedure will resolve my problem.
This explains why I was getting tired last year...

Thank you to my Maureen, my family, my doctor Robert Power, Kyneton Ambulance,  and the medical and ancillary staff of the Royal Melbourne  and Melbourne Private Hospitals including Cardiologist Dr Matt Brookes..

Take care in these daunting times...

The Inland Sea and other mysteries...

The Inland Sea

Josef is a precocious eleven year old grandson, not over the top garrulous but stiletto sharp quick.

Sitting chewing over his french toast with cinnamon and maple syrup laboriously loved over for the making of a beautiful breakfast the other day we sat contemplating the deeper things of life that satisfying food, holidays, a spectacular view and good coffee brings on.

Random facts bounced between the new and the old, insight was gained, truth reinforced, doubts dispelled and rekindled,  questions hung in the air like fog clinging to a mountain side. Connection though is often not in the noise but in the quiet of shared reflection this was our  experience for some fleeting minutes. Two issues we chewed, gnawed on and mulled overland have stuck with me though over the preceding days.

The mystery of the creation of life within the female of the species! Perhaps this was spurred on by my fourth daughters coming delivery? Josef gets the man women thing I would not could not condescend him by some obvious banalities or trivializing of this issue. No, rather he was mystified by what happens within the womb of a women? Obviously I am no expert but my insight is that a women creates an inland sea within her womb which relates back to when our dawn of time ancestors developing in the primeval ocean and then this creation effort was carried onto the land within the female. In effect  women nurtures her developing embryo in an inland sea just as a billion years ago our ancestors developed in a primeval sea.

We mulled over this for some time exploring the problems of oxygen and nutrient supply and growth to the growing baby. Breathing in the air when birth occurred was another area we explored as was the transition from inland sea to hostile land.

As we looked out I asked him what he saw? His answer trees. But what are trees? Are they not a miracle of nature are they not the only thing that sustains life (and their plant cousins) are they the organism that can take light, add minerals, water and make matter. Are they not turning energy into something solid? Are they not almost magical? The mystery and magic of nature we agreed was not to be taken for granted but was to be savoured and wondered about every time we look out on our world.

Did I have an answer to his questions? Well yes, were they the the right answers? Who knows but the reality and insight is in the question not perhaps in the answer.

Thanks Josef for awakening the child and wonder within.