No words

Isn't this a lovely looking family?

I don't know the family. I never met them. The day after this photo was taken they were driving on one of our roads. It was Boxing Day. It was also the last drive that three of them would ever take and almost certainly also the last drive of the fourth family member. The family was involved in a car crash.

Funerals of the three family members shown left to right in the photo were held yesterday. The life support for the woman on the right was turned off this morning.

The driver of the other car, it is said was returning from receiving methadone treatment. It is also reported that the other driver had more than 60 convictions, including at least 10 convictions for driving while disqualified and allegedly had been subject to a nine-year driving ban.

I should stress that I do not know the circumstances of the collision; in particular whether blame for the collision can be, or will be, attributed to either driver.

The other driver also died in the collision.

I've experienced better weeks

It has been an unhappy week.

The untimely death, days before his 26th birthday, of cricketer Phillip Hughes following an awful injury whilst playing cricket has shocked and gripped many Australians in a way rarely seen. It might be difficult for overseas readers who have heard this news and who are not in cricket playing countries to understand the extent of the general distress being expressed but Hughes somehow embodied so much of how Australians see themselves and see their heroes. The news of his passing upset me as it did so many others.

Phillip Hughes

The outpouring of grief around the world has been astonishing. This claim is not just hyperbole. On radio just minutes ago I heard that there have been 98,000,000 'views' around the world of photos on Instagram of cricket bats being displayed to mark Hughes passing. That's NINETY-EIGHT MILLION clicks on the internet in ONE day. Amazing.

Perhaps my emotion is amplified by another awful loss virtually simultaneous with that of Hughes. My volunteer co-worker of eight years at the Nursing Home, Da, passed away this morning little more than 12 hours later than Hughes after suffering a massive stroke on Wednesday morning also only a little more than 12 hours following Hughes' injury.

Da had been in good health, was only 67, ate healthily, exercised daily and simply was the last person I would imagine to be near the end of her days.

Both deaths reinforce the point; make the most of every day. Don't take life for granted, don't procrastinate about following your dreams and don't put off to another day telling your loved ones how much they mean to you. You may never get that chance.

Tragedy

Driving home today I heard radio reports of an adult and several children pinned by a fallen tree branch at a school in north-west Sydney. The branch was so large that it was mistakenly taken to be an entire tree by observers at the site. Later reports stated the adult and children had been rescued and taken to hospital. One child, aged 8, was said to be in a critical condition.

Sadly, that child has died. Less than three hours after the incident.

How shocking is the thought that a child could be in the expected safety of their school and suffer a fatal accident? How must the child's family feel at this moment?

Hearing the news of a fallen tree my mind immediately turned to the stories you hear about councils refusing pleas to have trees considered to be a risk by virtue of their location or condition managed or removed. Hopefully this does not prove to have been a factor in this awful incident however radio stations are already taking calls suggesting otherwise.

An awful tragedy.

Why?

(Reuters)

As I type this, news about the latest mass shooting in the USA at Sandy Hook Elementary School is still unfolding.

Early reports indicate that there are 27 dead including relative(s) of the shooter at what was referred to as a secondary scene. Twenty of the dead are children. The radio tells me that in the USA Elementary School is for children aged between 5 and 10.

Now, let me say - just for the sake of argument - that the shooter and his dead relative(s) had a falling out of some nature that led to their shootings. I can sort of understand that. Not condone it, but understand it.

What I don't understand is why someone would shoot at the school children. What is going on in the shooter's mind? How does it come to that?

Why would it happen? Why? Why? Why?

I just don't understand.

Not forgotten

2002 Bali bombing memorial at Coogee Beach, Sydney

Several bombs detonated this day ten years ago in Bali killed 202 people including 88 Australians.

Kew the tram and the roulette wheel...

When we met for lunch yesterday Andrew suggested I take the tram to Kew for a nice long trip through Melbourne, a journey that includes the beach side suburb of St Kilda which I had plans to see again. Well, when Andrew speaks trams I listen. No one could know more than he about Melbourne's tram system.

This morning I took the recommended tram and was not disappointed. From my pick up stop in the City it was about an hour's trip to the terminus and I believe I passed Andrew's high rise on the way. I didn't pick which building is his but certainly I glimpsed the view that features in his blog's header.

It initially was my intention to do the return journey on the same tram and stop off at St Kilda on the way but I changed my mind when I saw that the Kew terminus for that tram was also a stop for other lines travelling back to the city by other routes. I took the first of those other trams to arrive and enjoyed this shorter journey which I observed passed through Richmond, the venue originally intended by Adaptive Radiation for our lunch last Friday.

Once back in the city, I took to walking and crossed the river to see the Crown Casino complex and it's Southbank surrounds. I didn't set foot inside the casino itself having already seen others around Australia and overseas. I'm sure Andrew will let me know if I missed something special there but Southbank was lively on a sunny and cool Sunday and was sufficient to interest me. Oh and never one to miss a cinema opportunity I did pop in to see a movie whilst at the Crown complex.

Then it was back to my hotel for a quiet night interrupted only by a Pizza meal at a nearby city cafe.

A tragic loss

(ABC News)

Condolences to the families and colleagues of  Paul Lockyer, John Bean and Gary Ticehurst whose lives have been cruelly taken prematurely in yesterday's helicopter crash.

The ABC News site records it's tribute to the three men.

Best laid plans

Tsunami and Quake damage

This afternoon and evening certainly didn't proceed according to plan.

Flashback twenty seven hours and my plan for Friday afternoon and evening is to do my week's laundry and then settle down for a slothful evening catching up on television programs I have recorded but not yet seen. A quiet afternoon and evening at home alone.

Flashback twenty six hours and the phone rings. It is Ae ringing from the Emergency Department at Prince of Wales Hospital. She has a heart problem and her Golden Retriever is home, unfed and no one can get in to tend to her because Ae has only just had her home locks changed that afternoon and there are no spares of the new keys yet. 'I'm on my way'.

At the hospital I find that Ae has tripped at home and dislocated her collar bone. The locksmith who changed her locks has driven her to the hospital where her collar bone has been put back into place but the doctor has discovered that Ae's heart is racing. Ae wants to be discharged but two medicos are arguing strongly that she should remain overnight for observation and treatment. The medicos prevail over a reluctant and somewhat uncooperative Ae.

I take Ae's new keys and drive over to Je's place to hand them over. Je will mind the retriever (and Ae's house) until Ae is home again.

Flash forward twenty hours. I telephone Ae at home expecting her to have been discharged but there is no answer. I call Je to find that Ae is remaining at hospital for another night. Bummer. I was about to settle into my laundry etc but I better visit Ae. I drive across to POW Hospital but it is around 3.30pm and there are four schools en route all of which are traffic blocked with Eastern Suburbs mothers in their four wheel drives queued to collect their little ones. Never, never, never, ever drive between Centennial Park and Randwick at around 3.30pm on a school day. Never, never, never, again.

Finally I arrive at POW and drive around...and around...their massive...packed...car park. Ten minutes of my first 30 minutes at $3.40 per 30 minutes is spent finding a car space. The next 10 minutes of my first 30 minutes at $3.40 per 30 minutes is spent trying to navigate the corridors and inadequate signage of the Public Hospital to find the ward to which Ae has been moved following last night's admission to Emergency.

At last I find Bed 18 in Ward 3N. The bed is empty! I'm told Ae has just been taken for a TOE test and will not be back for two hours or so. Two hours! And I'm clocking up $3.40 per 30 minutes with no patient to comfort and a return trip past four schools to come. No, no, I will not wait. I take a note of the number to ring and will call from home later.

I return to my car and wonder of wonders depart just before the clock is about to tick over to the next block of $3.40 per 30 minutes. My first break. My second break is that Eastern Suburbs mothers have miraculously disappeared with their little ones and the return trip after 4pm is far smoother and faster although I do hit afternoon peak traffic again as I get to Woollahra and Edgecliff.

Once home it is laundry time. I grill a few sausages for my politically incorrect evening meal and settle down to watch my recorded programs. Just as I switch the television on I catch breaking news of an earthquake in Japan. I better catch that news first and start to watch. Next thing I am channel hopping between ABC 24 News, BBC World Service, SKY News, CNN and (heaven forbid, even) FOX News and I am mesmerised and horrified by the images and my realisation of the unfolding tragedy.

I break for ten minutes to call Ae to check on her progress and report on my day before returning to my channel hopping. I never do get to watch any of my recorded programs.

My sympathies and condolences to those affected by the quake and tsunami.

An unbearable loss

An acquaintance of mine has lost her only child, a son aged 22. He was holidaying in England and in circumstances not fully known to me he walked across a railway line not aware of the electrified third rail system operating there. He was electrocuted.

I feel for the grieving parents but am unable to conjure any words of comfort for them in those circumstances.

actually, occasionally, you know?

I've been switching between four channels providing ongoing coverage of the bush fire tragedy in Victoria this morning.

It seems the nature of these type of 'breaking news' programs that television journalists desperate to keep the viewers' attention for the next big development which never quite seems to come engage in repetitive reporting. The better journalists camouflage this repetition through a wide vocabulary but the less skilled flounder on pet phrases or descriptors that jar after a while.

I've lost count this morning of the number of times I have heard 'actually', 'occasionally' and 'you know'.

You know?

Victorian tragedy

Melbourne had it's hottest ever day yesterday when the temperature reached 46.4c (115.5f).

Shockingly, powerful winds fanned huge bush fires across the state and at the time of this post 14 people have been confirmed to have died in them and fears are held for another 25 who are missing.

My condolences to all those who have lost loved ones in the fires.

There are also bush fires in my home state of New South Wales but thankfully so far no fatalities here.

UPDATE: The latest confirmed death toll in Victoria is 181.