A Beam of Light Through a Pinhole

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A Beam of Light Through a Pinhole

Source public domain - the corona is a burning light during a full eclipse of the sun.When we were children, a beam of light through a pinhole on to a sheet of paper was how we watched an eclipse. It was the only safe way to view an eclipse of the sun. We clearly understood warnings that looking directly at the sun during an eclipse could send us blind.

The concentrated beam of light would cause lifetime damage to our vision, by actually burning the image into our retina. If that sounds a little scary, think of how you can burn a piece of paper, with a magnifying glass.

It’s natural to blink when looking at the sun, and during an eclipse, you are much less likely to blink. Instead, you stare.

A Failing Beam of Light – 2004

Even if we followed all those rules, we regard failing vision as one of those unavoidable symptoms of getting older.   [Read more…] about A Beam of Light Through a Pinhole

Dancing With Fred Astaire

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I could feel the muscles in my eyelids.  When I blinked very slowly, I could feel them connecting to my face under the skin.  And in my neck, when I lifted my chin, I could feel the fine muscles all through my neck.  It was an amazing sensation.

After nine weeks of dancing lessons, learning  Jive, Rock & Roll, Cha Cha  and some line dancing – I thought I knew every muscle in my body.  I wondered – how come all that exercise hadn’t dealt with every single muscle I owned?

Every Wednesday and Friday night – regardless of the 42° heat – we had stepped, swung and sweated our way through over two hours of lessons in the Baskerville Hall. In the following week we would start Jive again, but this night, this [Read more…] about Dancing With Fred Astaire

Dining Out

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One night while we were living in Stoneville, I decided to take my Dad out to dinner at a very upmarket Chinese restaurant in our neighbourhood.

We had been there before with friends and I was quite happy to spend $120 – 150 for us to have a lovely dinner with wine, beer, desert, coffee, whatever we wanted. I booked a table for two, for 8:00pm.  When we arrived, the restaurant was very busy doing takeaways and a number of tables were set but not occupied.  We were on time.

We were shown to a table for two, just inside the entrance to the dining area.  My father was seated first, with his back to the room of diners.  I was seated opposite him, with a first class view of the staff entrance into the kitchen/ serving area, the rubbish bins into which all plates are scraped before they hit the dishwasher and the repository for all empty bottles.

Suffice to say, I politely and quietly told the young waiter that the table was not suitable; we would not sit [Read more…] about Dining Out

Interview With Ben (age 10) About Saving Forests

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Today, we had an interview with Ben, aged 10, a school boy in New South Wales who is doing a project on rain forests and the need for conservation.  Ben sent me his questions by email and we hooked up with Skype, so he could record the interview.

I would like to share his questions and my answers with you – along with some of the photographs I sent to him by email for his project.  The questions were all set by Ben and I simply answered them as I saw fit.  His mother was present during the interview and was very pleased with the information Ben received.

 1)     How can we best preserve our rainforests?

Ant Lion Homes In The Sand

It is very important that we understand the depth of their bio-diversity and that habitat is not just trees. Many people overlook little things about habitat: it is the fallen leaf litter and the decaying logs in which the lizards and the beetles live, as much as the beautiful butterflies in the tree tops.

I have been to Cairns in Northern Queensland and to Sabah in Borneo, to visit rainforests and to try and understand how we can ignore their value as part of our environmental health. [Read more…] about Interview With Ben (age 10) About Saving Forests

Where Have All My Spiders Gone?

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After a short visit to the US, (to attend a financial planning conference) I flew to Canada to visit my two sons and the young ladies who became their wives. By then, all four of them had temporarily stopped roaming around the world and were living in Toronto.  In the early hours of an 1994 Easter holiday morning, while a snowy blizzard howled outside, those words spilled easily from my heart and soul to write a poem and a story for my second son.

Pointed, painted Christmas stars,

 flags of white marking off their boundaries.

Red-legged bellies span my early morning walk

with webs to catch my steaming breath. [Read more…] about Where Have All My Spiders Gone?

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