EXCHANGE INTERFACE

positive family

2026-04-07T05:38:52Z

The brother came for dinner with his wife and his eldest daughter (they left the 20 month old with the Phillipino nurse) and we had a great evening of dinner and talking and catching up and dealing with an enthusiastic 5 year old.

And I have learned that I do not know how to deal with small willful children. I've dealt with small children at church and in social things before, but generally their parents are pretty clear on the boundaries. Not that G and his wife S weren't, just that I think Miss 5 worked out that I was a pushover pretty early and basically decided I was the most fun to push boundaries with.

Oy.

But it was a good night. I did the food prep and it went down well. G and S enjoyed themselves, and Miss 5 also liked having aunties who were happy to play and engage with her.

But man that girl has a lot of energy.

Anyway, they came around 5:30pm, we had dinner around 6:15, and they left around 9-9:30pm. It was such a good night!

comments

welp all the medical stuff

2026-04-05T02:14:59Z

I was supposed to get a blood test on Monday. I fasted and everything. And then the doc couldn't find my veins. This is not an unusual problem, although he's been pretty good at it before. It's just sometimes nobody can find a good vein in me. And it's not usually this bad.

So I came away with a paper for a pathology appointment where the people seem to manage it very well and swiftly (they're also younger; I like this doc, but he's pushing 70 if not 75). I made the appointments for a couple of weeks time because it's fasting, and because my veins in both arms had not been forthcoming so no point in trying again and collapsing them further.

Tuesday was the solar battery guys (which is going quite great guns, tbh), and while I was clearing stuff away for them, I felt a sting in my heel.

Ugh. Pointy wood splinter, in under the skin. I pulled it out, tossed it away, and thought nothing of it. I didn't put any antiseptic on it, or try to clean the thing out. I just didn't think of it at the time since the splinter came out cleanly.

Except, obviously, the splinter wasn't clean.

Five hours later, my ankle hurt right in the spot where the splinter had been - over the achilles tendon, making walking difficult. I skipped hockey training, went to bed early.

Woke on Wednesday, still swollen, and the swollen area was slightly larger. I was a bit worried, but hoped it would pass. By midday, I was feeling tingles in various extremities. Not a good sign. We had a set of antibiotics from...some time previous. So I started taking those - keflex, is the type.

I booked an appointment with the doctor the next day. Went to bed. Woke up feeling a little better, but still with the swollen heel and the tingly. The doc looked at it, declared it infected, and put me on a course of penicillin, which I've been taking the last four days with varying regularity. The tingling has pretty much stopped (phew) and I'm supposed to check in with him on Tuesday.

So that was my near-brush with infection this week.

Lesson: when stuck by a bit of anything in the garden, clean it off!

--

Today, the half-brother and his family are coming over for dinner. Hopefully the little girls will be okay, because the twins are eager to meet them. I've met them both before, although the younger one was only just over a year old and she wasn't great with strangers, but we hardly see them at all and we're not really a presence in their lives except distantly.

I'm doing dinner - roast goat loin and roast pork. Along with roast vegies.

Anyway, hopefully it all goes well.

comments

battery day

2026-03-31T00:18:15Z

I suspect my site is one of great frustration for these guys.

There is no space near our switchboard, so they have to make a stand-alone space for the battery and inverter to go. They have to dig down to make a base. There are tree roots like crazy.

It's not a nice site for installation - the house was not designed like modern houses: the land cleared of trees, the slab poured all over and everywhere. This house was built on enclosed brick footings - a base wall on clay that has lasted surprisingly long.

I'm probably also not the kind of homeowner they want to work for, someone who'll let them do their job instead of asking all kinds of questions and stuff.

Okay, and I'm stressed too rn.

comments

forward planning is for WUSSES

2026-03-30T03:08:55Z

Apparently the battery guy wants to come in TOMORROW.

*sigh*

Luckily, I prepped the planned battery site on the weekend. One less thing to think about. Although I guess that's forward planning on my part.

comments

we are one, but we are many

2026-03-27T05:26:20Z

I crossed a mighty ocean
from the bloody tides of war,
I am a storm-tossed seeker
Of a welcome peace-filled shore.
My children will not learn the speech
Their ancestors did tongue
But in this land of hope they will
become Australian

I sought an education
respected through the world,
I yearn for opportunity
to see my thoughts unfurl
This land accepts my knowledge
My work beneath the sun
And here in mind and body I'll
become Australian.

comments

head injury

2026-03-27T05:15:08Z

Short story: I climbed up on an unsecured stool in the garden, fell off and whacked the back of my head on the edge of a bathtub garden. Right parietal. Still the skull, so protected, but there was definite OW involved.

tl;dr I got it checked out, and scans, and no concussion or symptoms, but I'm taking it easy

I had a sore head with a lump, no blackouts or dizziness, definite swelling. Got the neighbour to take me to the doctor, then to the station so I could go get it scanned - ultrasound and CT. Haematoma (ie. blood swelling) but no significant injury that they could spot.

Still no dizziness or blackouts, no memory loss (that I can tell) and everything seems fine so far. I'm still typing.

That said, today, my right side is all achey - I've been having issues along the outside hip, involving stiffness of the muscle - it gets better after movement, but for the duration of the stiffness, it's not fun. Now, my right hand and right foot are feeling tingly. I have a bunch of very marginal neural issues on the right side of my body, so this has probably just exacerbated it. Either way, it's not fun.

Luckily the Edible Garden Trail is done so far as hosting is concerned. I'm planning to go out on the trail with a friend tomorrow - I have a plan, but it's fairly extensive so we'll see how we manage going along. Could be good, could be a problem. I'm going along with the woman I invited over for Christmas Day lunch - she seemed pretty happy to come along and visit gardens, so that'll be nice.

The main issue of going on the Trail is probably going to be petrol and driving. Through Sydney city and inner west, it's going to be just a wee smidge rough.

Although, interestingly, today I went to the doc for the follow-up on the scans. (Everthing's fine.) And although it was lunchtime on Friday there was almost nobody at the cafes next to the station. That's unheard of. I suspect a lot of people aren't eating out as often - which wasn't the case during COVID. The city businesses suffered then, but I suspect that with everyone pulling back from excessive spending, we're going to see a lot of local business going out as well...

*sigh*

Finally got paid via the new payroll company, as well as the 'catchup' pay that I missed out on at the start of the month. Phew.

--

And in other money news...

stories about my father

...well, not quite. Dad is coming to Sydney in April. Probably. If a Sydney client will pay him. He's been waiting for four months for this client to pay him, though... It's eternal optimism with him. And, honestly, I understand the hope, but also...I'm kind of like, "Could you not have just made nice quiet money the way your wife was doing back when you met her? Basic real estate stuff? Did you have to get glamourous and intiative-driven and foward-thinking?" Oh Dad.

I just want to shake my head at my dad. I love him but...

--

Anyway, it is Friday, I have just finished work. It is the weekend, and I suppose I should try to do some writing, but on the writing front I have been absolutely awful. I have to rewrite the Final Confrontation of Book 1 again - finally found the plot notes for it...

So close! SO CLOSE!

--

Did I mention the new chickens we got? We got two, one died, we got another two, and the three are hanging out together pretty happily. Except that we just had a cold snap (went from 25-30C days down to 15-20C days like that) and while they're doing okay-ish outside, we're bringing them in at night.

...Actually, I wonder if we could stick them all in the one cage. We were keeping them separate so we could tell whose shit was whose (for a while we thought they might be experiencing the same issue that the other chick died of) but it's just coccidiosis, which we're treating with special water. And they're not so large that it's impossible to fit them all in one cage overnight right now. Hm. It's a thought.

Right. Time to rest up.

comments

weekend

2026-03-22T10:40:19Z

Weekend was crazy busy, and I ended up with a spoons crash on Sunday midafternoon. Ended up skipping church.

It was a really good weekend, though.

Mind you, it's now quarter to ten and I'm not yet in bed.

Going now.

comments

home and energy thoughts

2026-03-19T08:50:29Z

What if I don't want to run the electricity in my household like a standard Australian household?

( thinky thoughts )

comments

so tired

2026-03-16T06:49:02Z

Every time I lay down for a nap or an early night, or stay in bed for a longer sleep-in, I get disrupted by someone.

I'm not sleeping well. Is it a stress thing? A perimenopause thing? A thing with the weather? A 'life the universe and the end of the world as we know it' thing? Who even knows!

Unfortunately, I don't get a break in evening events until Thursday. And while I could stay home for each of them, in the first instance I'm the president, in the second a young woman is coming along for the first time, and in the third it's a social event.

I think I may have to take the sleeping drugs tonight. Well, melatonin.

comments

stuff and bother on a Friday

2026-03-13T00:35:34Z

I think I waited too long to investigate the Solar Battery situation. The guy has not replied to my emails or my texts.

Actually, most people are rather bad at responding to my emails and texts. GRARGH.

Anyway, looking at other solar battery quotes, his looks very cheap, which...I'm mostly okay with tbh.

I'm thinking of this as a stop-gap measure, really

until I can set up a longer-lasting nickel-iron battery - the kind that old Nikola Tesla came up with, and which work for 100 years. Yes, it takes a little maintenance, but I'm more worried about losing access to electrical technicians than I am about having to replace the electrolyte solution once a month.

Yes, that says where my priorities and fears are right now. Frankly, I'm more worried about robustness of our supply-demand chain (newsflash: it's about as robust as your grandmother's crystal in a quarry) than I am about having to do things manually.

--

My garden is open on the 21st-22nd March, for guests, and it's seriously 'underdone' right now. Everything is wild (it's that time of year when the weather is hot and the rain is happening, and EVERYTHING GROWS). I had some friends by last weekend to put together some garden beds, and they're done and set, and now I just have to fill them.

And that's where this weekend and the teenager I'm hiring to do the work comes in.

A pile of woodchips is being delivered this afternoon.

We dig out the back paths (carefully! there are pipes in there!), discard the runner grass, and put it in the garden beds (bottom).

We dig out the chicken yards and all the lovely soil that's down there, and put it in the new garden beds (top).

We fill the back paths with the woodchips, then the chicken yards, then the chicken tunnels, then the banana circle, then the composts...

And all this after going for a 5km run on Saturday (maybe I shouldn't have committed to the run).

Then, Sunday morning is a Crop Swap!

OOF.

--

Yesterday, I made the sudden realisation that I've been writing Maria Hill (all my agents, in fact) like they were Australian SAS, not US Special Forces. An operative goes out and is given the trust to deal with the situation as needed rather than having to go up the chain of command as US Forces (even special forces) have to do.

The difference is rather telling.

I wonder how recent this doctrine is

- the military doctrine of minimising possible fuck-ups by ensuring that decisions have to be approved up the command chain. I wonder if (pragmatically) there was a significant cultural difference between the WWII Howling Commandoes and the way the US military worked (at least pre-2025) such that Steve would have found it distinctly difficult to work with the modern US military units, who are trained not to go off-road and make their own decisions: the YT video says that even units like Navy Seals and Delta Force are reliant on communications and up-chain decisions to go/no-go.

Anyway, it's a thought.

Not to mention, I can use this in my novel: if the MC is more inclined for an Aussie SAS mentality (although she is American) and doesn't quite fit into the paramilitary organisation she's working with (which runs off a US military authority mentality) then I can make that work.

--

Finally, Jima-wu, our remaining chicky-babe, is still with us. Survived and thriving. Back to what she was before the sickness, still on medication, and will be for a few more days.

*sigh* I'm still sad about Nien-go, and a little tired. It's a lot going on right now.

comments

bad chicken news

2026-03-09T08:02:04Z

The two pullets we got a couple of weeks ago started going downhill from probably Friday night. We could only get them to the vet this afternoon (Monday).

They have antibiotics and we're crop-feeding them, but I don't think it's going to do much good.

Fifteen minutes later: Nien-Go is dead. We're not sure if Jima-wu is going to survive, although she was always doing better than dainty little Nien-Go.

( feeling like I failed )

comments

passing me by

2026-03-05T21:42:49Z

I'm just not managing to stay on top of any of the fandom trends.

Still haven't watched K-Pop Demon Hunters, or Heated Rivalry, or even Bridgerton S4...

I'm not bothering with Marvel (they're dead to me, like all the best characters in the franchise) and there's not much else that particularly interests me.

As usual, I mostly lack someone to watch things with. I'll watch movies that I'm only marginally interested in with friends, but I've never been a 'rewatch' kind of person - even in the background. Too many things to do.

--

Actually, I'm just not managing to stay on top of ANYTHING right now.

comments

monday morning

2026-03-02T03:50:35Z

Day 1 of the new contract.

I do wish the agent had negotiated a day or two off. I could do with a break. Everything is mad crazy busy around here.

And we're trying to acclimatise the Tweety Sweeties right now, but don't really have anywhere to put them right now, so they're in a cage on the front porch during the day (with water, food, dustbath, and perch) and get brought in at night to sleep safely.

That should be Nien-go on the left, and Jima-wu on the right. They are, once again, named after food: nien go is the palm sugar and glutinous rice new year cake, and jima-wu is black sesame.

The sole exception to this chicken naming standard has been the 'Lockdown Ladies', Gladys Berechicklian (named after the NSW Premier - like a US state governor - during the early part of the pandemic) and Dr Kerry Chant (named after the NSW Health Minister at the time). I don't know why we landed on those, but it seemed funny at the time, and Gladys Berechicklian always gets a good laugh out of people!

I have political thoughts about Australia and everything that's going on in the world, but will post them another time. *sigh*

comments

old HD

2026-02-27T00:17:37Z

So, I was reading a Thread where a guy was warning about old drives, and how they might not last very long anymore because of degradation of the components used in them.

So, while looking for a mouse this morning, I dug up 2 old HDs (circa 2010?) and two external HDs and figured I'd kick them started and see if they worked.

And I just found the MOTHERLODE of photos!

Dating back to 2011! Including ones of my old cat, and the parentals' old cat, and friends' children as babies! WOW.

And old trips! Including a few that I thought I'd lost forever!

(Apparently, I have always taken lots of photos of builidngs!.)

Also, boy was I skinny!! Either that, or the camera made me look skinny. Oh, younger me, why did you not realise? XD

comments

Draft...2?

2026-02-26T08:23:27Z

Finished Draft 2 of The Nullifae: And If I Rise. Had to rewrite a whole section in the middle, then cram in a sequence where they meet the Oracle, who's a Fae.

There's still some stuff to be done - I need to rewrite the opening scene so it's more happening, less infodumping. And I think I want to write a snapshot at the end where Jenna is getting more or less fired from her job. Do I write her getting fired from her work, or do I just show her in the doghouse before she calls the Director of Crossover who gave her his number if she decided she wanted a change of scenery?

Choices choices.

It's about 60K finished, which isn't huge but isn't small potatoes either.

comments

life

2026-02-23T22:53:42Z

I need to sit up, no slumping.

Still no contract.

I wonder if the HR manager has pushed back against the client group manager...

ETA 2 hours later: Apparently they are renewing me, but they're changing the payroll company they're paying me through, and I'm not sure what's going on with the rate, or how much longer the contract will go for.

--

Also, per my icon: you should do a search on "political" quilts at QuiltCon '26. There are a bunch of conservatives with their panties in a knot because "suddenly" the quilts are "political"...

--

We have two new chickens. Babies, 6 weeks old. We're keeping them inside for the moment, in a cage, mostly because the coop we'd put them in needs repair and I won't have proper time until Sunday (but am stealing lunchtimes and after work). We're also trying to get them used to cuddles.

comments

memory

2026-02-18T10:42:35Z

Memory gaps like whoa right now.

Apparently this is to be expected at my age and stage of life?

But honestly, it's a pain.

--

Have not received work contract renewal yet.

I have received a notice of a job opening in my line of work, permanent, in-house support/development. Hybrid, 3 days in the office, 2 days remote. The package is about 2/3 of what I'm getting now, but that's to be expected. And I don't mind an in-house department (in theory; if you get good people to work with, it's fine. If you get awful managers, etc...)

I put my resume in, we'll see if anything comes of it.

comments

ao3 notifications?

2026-02-17T09:52:39Z

Anyone not receiving notifications from AO3?

comments

got through the weekend

2026-02-08T09:00:21Z

Not quite as bad as feared, although every time I tried to take a nap/sleep in, I ended up having to field a call from a Baby Boomer.

UGH.

I mean, it was only twice. But both times it was about stuff that my uncle was trying to get rid of. First his wife called me (after he called my phone and couldn't get through, she called B1's phone, and B1 WOKE ME UP to give me the phone). And then mum called me WHILE I WAS TRYING TO SLEEP IN ON SUNDAY MORNING.

IDK. I try to sleep, it never manages to be enough lately. Like I'm functional, just tired. Also, headaches a lot. And my temporomandibular joint has been giving me trouble. It feels fine most of them time, but biting down on things is a bit dodgy.

Tomorrow, I'm going to watch the superbowl with some guys from church. It's annual, and just one of those Things That I Do. Three of the four friends who usually come along and watch have checked in with me to see if I'm coming. And as for the fourth friend, I'll just say "curiosity is not his love language".

Oof, I might go lie down and do some reading until I fall asleep.

I did write about 1200 words today, though. That was good.

comments

watch Bridgerton with me?

2026-02-06T04:43:22Z

Is there anyone who'd be interested in co-watching Bridgerton S4 with me?

I want to watch it, I just need to schedule time to watch it, and have someone else metaphorically "on hand" to keep me from rushing off and doing something else.

Yes, we would have to do some tricksy scheduling to manage it if you're in the (usual) locations of Europe/the US. I'm happy to try to work something out.

comments

unravelling

2026-02-06T00:04:56Z

So this is at the edge of an "I am not coping with life right now" kind of week.

Unfortunately, the weekend also looks a bit busy.

comments

halfamoon challenge

2026-02-04T11:10:50Z

Pick a female character you know I'll write, and one of the prompts below. Preferably one nobody else has yet chosen.

Day 1 - The Innocent
Day 2 - Guilty Pleasures
Day 3 - The Caregiver
Day 4 - Needs
Day 5 - The Outlaw
Day 6 - Her Own Personal Code
Day 7 - The Lover
Day 8 - Pet Peeves
Day 9 - The Scholar
Day 10 - Acting the Fool
Day 11 - The Explorer
Day 12 - Her Sanctuary
Day 13 - The Ruler
Day 14 - Letting Go

I never manage to write for halfamoon because my stories end up seriously epic. Maybe this off-the-cuff thing will work instead. (Or maybe those will just turn seriously epic.)

comments

travel: Georgia - Uplistsikhe and Kutaisi

2026-02-02T22:56:46Z

Yes, I'm back with the Georgian trip!

Day 1: Overview | Day 2: Vashlovani Nature Reserve | Day 3: Jvari Monastery and Svetitskhoveli Cathedral

-----

The night of the Jvari Monastery and the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral (still Wednesday) we stayed in a little vineyard tucked away in the back of beyond, which required a hike along rough tracks and up and down roads. Our luggage was (thankfully) taken by a very old jeep - Soviet era, we were told. It surely looked it!

A B&B up in the mountains

The vineyard had been owned by a former church minister, and they were still doing it up. The road there was a little rough, and a few of the women struggled somewhat with the path.

There was also almost no signal.

But there were kittens!

This night was a particularly bad case of "we can't eat anything, we're too stuffed full of food". I didn't even take photos of the food, I was so full!

And the next morning was no better.

Ruins and vineyards and buildings on the walk back down to where the bus awaited us in the morning:

Thursday: Uplistsikhe

Yeah, it's a bit of a mouthful...

Uplistsikhe Rock Village dates back to the 2nd Century BC, and translates to 'God's Fortress'.

The carvings and design of it indicate both pagan and Christian residency (a pagan temple's fire altars were filled in when the community converted to Christianity and the space used as a chapel/cathedral), and multiple cultural influences from outside Georgia are indicated by its architecture and decoration before it was sacked in the 12th Century by the Mongols.

There was so much of it to see, but we only had an hour, so it was a very truncated tour of a really interesting historical site.

And I spent long enough in the chapel that I and my roomie (only other non-American on the tour, apart from the 'host' who was local, and the 'organiser' who was ) lost the rest of the group on the way out of the site. I found the chapel particularly fascinating to me for the black Madonna-and-Child portrait, the layout of the space, and the "drooping arms" cross symbol, which is representative of St Nino's grapevine cross she carried to Georgia when she brought Christianity to that part of the world.

Oh yes, and the black Madonna and child!

No, not me! (I just realised the juxtaposition of the photos. XD XD)

More seriously, there was a woman in the chapel who was praying or observing her pilgrimage. I had to be quiet while she was there and even after she left, I had to be quiet because there was a woman manning the shop right outside the door. *sigh*

I find it a bit restricting, actually, that the chapels and cathedrals all demand silence of you. There are times for silence, of course. But there's also time to sing and be joyful - to shout to the Lord! To everything a time and a season, as Ecclesiastes declares. I did manage to sing a hymn in a chapel in Positano, Italy and that was fun!

Anyway, there was a tunnel we missed out on seeing because we didn't work out where the rest of the group went, and then we got stuck at the top and ended up having to go back down the way we came, whereupon we met the rest of the group and went along to the bus.

On the way to lunch, we passed through the city of Gori, which is Stalin's birthplace. Many of the older Americans wanted to hop out and have a look at it, and I hopped out because the architecture looked really interesting!

C'mon, tell me this isn't fascinating to the daughter of an architect!

Gori: birthplace of Stalin

The location is the house in which he was born. The neighbourhood was "bought out" (*cough cough* we know how that goes in the west, now imagine it in Soviet Georgia!) and everything else razed to bring you...this edifice of stone and magnificence...

The Americans exclaimed over the details of Stalin's life. Me? I looked around at the architecture (very interesting, oddly beautiful for what I think of as 'communist brutalism') and then out at the public gardens surrounding it, and the Georgian national flag flapping in the wind. And I turned to our Georgia guide, grinned, and said "Stalin would have hated it." And she grinned back.

It was pretty much a fifteen minute stop because we were already kind of late to lunch. But then, we were still kind of full from the previous night and breakfast, so it's not like we were rushing to get to eat!

--

Lunch at Sisters-in-Law winery. The owner used to be in the diplomatic service, but married a guy whose family owned land out in the countryside and now runs a restaurant that they built out of reclaimed everything. All the bricks, all the wood, all the furnishings found and repaired and now reused. It's very permaculture.

books and food and activism against an oppressive government: what it can look like

They're also very socially active (also very permaculture) to the point where they decided to close the restaurant this summer, because they wanted to participate in local protests against pro-Russia government and they were worried about retaliation. That's a dedication to the cause. There were assorted signs and stickers around the place that showed the sentiment of the younger generation about Russia, but the older generations often recall the good times of the Soviet Union and want that back.

Sounds a bit familiar, really.

They definitely had some permaculture books...

Also, there was a wine there that was absolutely amazing, and honestly I'd have shipped an entire crate of it back home except they didn't have any left over from that batch! *sigh*

A beautiful place with a beautiful couple doing good, solid things in the world.

--

Kutaisi
At this point, my memories are growing a little fuzzy. I shouldn't have put off typing this up for so long, and since I've been back, a lot has happened!

But I do remember that the dinner in Kutaisi was a bit ordinary, all things considered...

A walking bridge, quite close to where we were staying, and the last light of day.

comments

thoughts on news thingies from the last week

2026-02-01T23:32:39Z

pipe bombs in perth

Finally on the 26th of January ("Australia Day"), there was an Indigenous protest march in Perth.

During the march, someone threw a pipe bomb into the crowd. It was packed with metal shards and nails and suchlike. He failed to light it correctly so it didn't explode.

He was white. He was a he. That's all we know about it. And even that was mostly reported by the people who bring online news commentary, rather than mainstream media. (I saw it first with Cheek Media, myself.) You know why? Because "we aren't putting out his name because he is accused of..."

FUCK THAT SIDEWAYS WITH A RUSTY SPORK.

They had ZERO compulsion about publishing the names of the Bondi terrorists.

But a terrorist action done by a white guy? (It wasn't even billed as 'a terrorist action'. Well, excuse me for bloody well thinking that a FUCKING HOMEMADE PIPE BOMB tossed into a group of people who are supporting a particular racial identity isn't 'a terrorist action'.)

Oh no, can't publish his name!

conservatives, right wing, and please let our electoral system hold

In other political news in Australia, our 'right wing' is going down. Hard. Not only is their current leader (she's technically a "conservative moderate" and has lasted since the election) on the way out, but the Racists And Arseholes Party (known more conventionally as 'Pauline Hanson's One Nation') is on the rise - at least in sentiment. Whether that sentiment can gather the centre-to-right-wing conservatives in Australia is another question.

Our holding institutions right now are pretty much the Australian Electoral Commission and common decency, but how long those will hold is another matter. Watching what is happening in the US, being told what is happening by billionaires who own all the media properties, having a point of view RAILROADED through thanks to a lack of media discernment, and general outrage headlines...

I can't see my conservative friends here in my electorate (strongly conservative - one of the very few suburban electorates that hasn't gone "Teal") voting PHON. And they have to vote, and they can vote for the "least worst" option - ie. preferences. Plus, we have a very large percentage of "not born here" Aussies in this electorate, possibly one of the reasons that Old Guy down the road (and a bit further in) has his house decorated with PHON and Trump flags. Yes, Trump flags. In Australia.

Great moogly googly.

Anyway, we know the guy - he stumped up on Election Day 2025, put his little sandwich board up, stuck a plastic sleeve with the "Trumpet Of Patriots" party 'how to vote' card on, and went away.

That sleeve was touched pretty much twice. Once by one of us volunteers for the other parties gingerly looking to see what they'd recommended (even the conservative volunteers were eyeing it like it was fresh dogshit), and then once by a woman from the AEC whose job it was to go around collecting the 'how to vote' cards for each party in each electorate, so that the AEC could archive them.

We left the sandwich board after we packed everything away, and it was gone the next night.

In the end, hard right-wing support isn't non-existent, and probably never will be, but the current state of world politics, where right wing conservative parties get hollowed out by hard right wing racist fucks is sincerely worrying. I've never thought Australia is immune, but it's a worrying trend to finally witness happening, even if nothing comes of it. Grievance politics is hell on the system.

Maybe it mitigates with mandatory enrolment and preferential voting - we can hope - but if it does, that's on the system and the institution, not on anything else. Heaven knows the parties and the politicians are NOT HELPING.

NOT. HAPPY. JAN.

comments

a couple of weeks old now

2026-02-01T23:08:18Z

Some thoughts I put down at the time, and which I'm going to store here.

( Bondi Massacre: shortly after - the aftermath )

--

( a few weeks later/now a few weeks ago )

comments