Some of my friends and family have decided to head off overseas (Covid be damned), and I’m just a tad jealous. Despite making plans to visit family in New Zealand in February next year, our last international adventures are now more than a decade ago. Anecdotes and photos have faded, alas. It’s probably ‘normal’ for avid travellers to do less of it as they age, for financial and health reasons. In addition, as illustrated in…
This topic was sparked by news from a near-neighbour who had received the dreaded ‘landlord requires vacant possession’ letter. All tenants go into a lease today knowing that the landlord can decide to sell the property, at which point they will be evicted. A lot of landlords have been doing that over the last two years, taking a profit as property prices spiralled. The rental vacancy figures in this town and just about everywhere else…
On a quick shopping trip this week, it seemed that every second person was wearing a Covid mask, even though there is no legal obligation to do so. Friends, relatives, neighbours and friends of friends are either in isolation because of a positive RAT test or actually have Covid-19. There’s been a nasty flu getting around South-East Queensland at the same time. The only way to tell one from the other is to take a…
I had no sooner finished writing about floods in Warwick when it started raining again. I’d written the lead article for our local U3A newsletter last week, recounting the times since 2000 the Condamine River had closed the main bridge into town. The answer (so far) is four – October 2010, January 2011, January 2013 and May 2022, when the river rose above 6.5m. Closing the bridge effectively cleaves the town in two,as alternative routes…