Bridges in Singapore
As an island state with a river running through it, Singapore has a lot of bridges, some old, some new and some inside shopping malls.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Bridges
Category: Blogging Challenges
Posts inspired by Word Press blog challenges eg. Daily Prompt, Share Your World etc.
RDP: Book
Book
Although I have a Kindle now which I find very handy when I travel or for reading in bed I still own a lot of books. I like all kinds of books, some science fiction, detective stories, biographies, history and even some of the genre known as chick lit. I also have a small collection of doll books. Although I do a lot of my researching online those books are very handy to quickly look something up and I enjoy the illustrations a lot more in a book.
When David and I lived in South Australia there was a big second-hand book sale two or three times a year at the Dom Polski Hall in Adelaide and we always went, the proprietors got to know us by name over the years. When we first visited in the late seventies or early eighties, the cheapest books were fifty cents each. We were very hard up at the time so it was great to spend five dollars and come away with a big pile of new reading material. In later years I mostly spent a little more to buy nice hardcover books. I can still remember how we would browse the many tables of books for a couple of hours. I don’t think we ever left empty-handed.
However, these days lots of people seem to be ditching their books because they are downsizing. We get lots of them donated to the Op Shop and keeping the bookroom in some kind of order has become one of my pet projects. It’s a small room and there is never enough room for all the books. We do have our regular customers amongst the locals and we sell quite a few books to holidaymakers too. They often come in for books, jigsaw puzzles and board games to pass the time with.
There are other ways to dispose of unwanted books too. At the Botanical Gardens in Hobart, there is an area called The Burrow. It’s a small room with shelves of donated books which are available for visitors to the gardens to read and even take home if they wish. People often drop donations of books and magazines there too.
There is also the Little Free Library Organisation.
According to their website, they are the largest free book sharing network in the world. There are a couple of registered libraries in Tasmania and I suspect there may be a few unofficial ones as well. I am pretty sure I’ve seen one in Geeveston although I’ve never used it.
Some people use books to create art too. At Maker’s On Church Street in Geeveston, you can buy paper flowers and other items made from the pages of old books.
I still enjoy browsing in secondhand book shops and there are a couple of good ones in Hobart. The one pictured is my favourite kind, cluttered and you never know what you will find.
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Share Your World: 22 April 2019
Sharing My World This Week
My photos this week also answer these questions
- Featured image of dolls and Cindy and Polly for question 1
- The red rose for questions 2,4,5 &7
- A roast dinner cooking in the oven for question 3
- My apple tree for questions 4,6 &8
- Was the last thing you read digital or print?
I have a couple of e-books on the go. I was reading “The Last Librarian” back in January but it was rather a depressing book so I put it aside during the bushfires and haven’t gone back to it yet. I read a very funny travel book and then started another e-book which also turned out to be rather serious so I put it on hold too. Recently I’ve only been reading blog posts and news articles. The last thing I read before this was a post from Mrs Angloswiss for a word prompt.
- Are you more an extrovert or introvert?
I am most definitely an introvert and I did not need the Myers Briggs test to tell me that although it did tell me what kind of an introvert I am, or at least what kind I was in the 1990’s when I had to do the test as part of a work training program.
- How is your life different from what you imagined as a younger person?
I can honestly say that I did not imagine this part of my life at all. The future was shadowy. I didn’t imagine being a widow or having aches and pains. I didn’t start to think much about old age and what it would be like until David died. Apart from that, I guess my life is much like I thought it would be as I always knew that dreaming of lottery wins, world travel and big houses was an entertaining fantasy, not real life.
4. Do you think about dying? Does death scare you? Why or why not?
Yes, I do think about dying. We all die and realistically I’m nearer the end than the beginning of my life. Yes, it does scare me a bit. I don’t want to die in a hospital like David did. Perhaps I’m more afraid of the being ill and helpless part than the actual dying, although I hope it won’t hurt. I do wonder what comes after death as I’m not sure if I believe in heaven and hell. Not reincarnation I hope because I don’t know if I want to go round again.
The apple tree October 2018
apple blossoms on our tree.
Apples on my tree
Additional Gratitude Bonus Question: Who has been the kindest to you in your life?
I don’t measure how kind one person has been to me against another. I’ve been very fortunate to have always been surrounded by kindness. I have had it from (some) family members and many friends, especially in the past few years.
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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Signs
Signs of the Times
My photos this week were taken with my phone while I was out and about in Geeveston. As I’ve explained before I don’t like to take my camera with me to the Op Shop. I’m afraid that it will end up buried under a pile of stuff never to be seen again. I don’t enjoy using the phone that much but it does take a reasonable photo.
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Share Your World: 15 April 2019
QUESTIONS:
- Guns? Are you pro or con? Explain your point of view.
Definitely con. In Australia, we have stricter gun laws than the USA and I think that we are better for it.
Of course, we still have shootings from time to time, there are unstable people everywhere, but nowhere near as frequently as you do in the USA. Thank goodness we don’t yet need metal detectors in our schools and we are not dominated by the wishes of an organisation like the NRA.
I understand that some people like to shoot for sporting reasons or to hunt. Neither are my thing but I think that’s OK as long as their weapons and ammo are properly secured when not in use; and as long as the hunters intend to eat what they shoot. I don’t believe anyone who is not in the military or possibly police needs an assault rifle. You can hardly call shooting animals with those sporting anyway. What I find disturbing about the gun culture in America is the casual way that people often seem to have guns in their homes, in handbags or drawers where a child can easily get hold of them. It disturbs me that people who are a lot like me would consider shooting another person in cold blood and if you wouldn’t do it why even have a gun? This is something I feel quite strongly about and I know that many won’t agree with me.
- How would your country change if everyone, regardless of age, could vote?
First of all, I think that everyone eligible should vote. If you don’t vote when you have the opportunity you can’t complain about the outcome. Australians are about to vote and while it is compulsory for us I hope that people vote properly so it will count. Should everyone vote? Well, I think you have to understand what you are voting for or against. Children are more politically aware now than when I was a child and perhaps you could make an argument for the 16-18-year-old group being allowed a say but not a baby vote. That would just be a second vote for parents or other interested parties and not a true reflection of the situation. I’m also concerned that some younger people may see an election as something like a reality TV show where you vote on personalities and not on policies. Policies are dull but the results of them will be what we have to live with for the term of the next government.
I want to be careful here because I’ve recently been reading about the Women’s Vote and the attitudes of men towards the idea that we were intelligent enough and aware enough to vote a century ago. However, I don’t feel I can justify votes for very young children. I do think that if more young people voted we might elect governments who cared more about climate change but the under-thirties in this country have a poor voting record in the past decade or so and that would need to change.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/the-frant-if-you-don-t-enrol-you-can-t-complain
- What’s your cure for hiccups?
I try holding my breath but generally, I just wait for them to go away.
- What’s the coldest you’ve ever been?
Hmm, maybe Siberia but I can remember spending a night sleeping in a sleeping bag in a train carriage in Peterborough in country South Australia when I was in my twenties and although I doubt the temperature was below freezing that must have been one of the coldest nights of my life. I was in my twenties then. Or maybe in the desert near Uluru a decade or so later when we spent a night in a cabin.
Gratitude
If you would like, share a story, a photo or some thoughts on you may be thankful for this week!
We’re having some lovely autumn days when it’s pleasant to be out of doors.
I’m looking forward to a week’s break over Easter as our shop will be closed and tired volunteers will be enjoying some downtime.
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RDP: Picture
Pictures In My Mind
For Sunday’s Ragtag Daily Prompt Gizzylaw asks.
Do you have pictures in your mind? Do you have places, sounds, smells, people that live in your mind? Mental pictures of your life?
For me, the answer is yes. I try to capture the special places and special moments in my life with my camera. We all have those holiday photos, fun family photos and pet pictures that remind us of good times. Of course, you can’t capture everything in a photo. Sometimes the picture is like a marker and looking at it prompts memories of when and where it was taken.
I don’t really like having my photo taken that much. I didn’t even when I was much younger and looked better than I do now. I’ll never join the selfie craze but there have been times when I’ve wanted one for the album.
These were three that I asked David to take of me on our big overseas trip in 1990. Two are with landmarks, the other because it was a day, a time and a place that I wanted to remember, one of the best days of the holiday even though all we did was go for a walk. We were in Scotland amongst the lochs and the mountains and it was somewhere I had always wanted to go.
On the slopes of Ben Nevis pretending to be a mountain climber.
Beijing 1990
This picture, which I took while visiting the Great Wall of China doesn’t look like much but when I look at it I remember the walk I took. I had got separated from our tour group and walked on much further than everyone else until I had got away from the crowds. This picture brings that memory alive for me again, I remember the still air, melting snow on the steps as I climbed, some distant booming sounds. For me, that short walk is my favourite memory of China.
There are some things you can’t take pictures of though, and things that even if you photograph them you can’t do them justice. Sometimes it is better to put the camera or the phone down and just take in the scene. Photograph it with your eyes so you will never forget. We visited Wellington, New Zealand on a beautiful summer Sunday when we cruised in 2016. I took a lot of photos trying to capture the essence of that day and although the pictures don’t quite do that I do remember the sunshine, the icecreams, the street pianos and the exuberant donuts the pilot’s boat did to wish us farewell.
The water was such a beautiful colour that day. Wellington , NZ 2016
Here is the other Street Piano.
Wellington Cable Car in the upper terminus station.
We loved this quirky structure.
A lot of my memories are in picture form, I see the much younger me running along a platform at Adelaide Station, so anxious to see an approaching steam locomotive, or Naomi and I seeing a favourite band in concert. I see David and me in the car playing “Road to Nowhere” at the start of a road trip, the faces of people who I used to work with on the railways and our past dogs chasing balls on the beach.
Then there are those mental pictures that just come into your head. Naomi and I get this quite a lot. Our sense of humour can be quirky and sometimes we see funny pictures in our minds of ordinary things. For example, once a workmate was talking about his trip to the USA and that he had been to Disneyland. Naomi said that she had to try very hard not to laugh. I knew it was because she was seeing this rather serious man looking something like this.
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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Walks, Trails, Sidewalks
Siberian Sidewalks
As I used my most recent street photos for Sonofabeach96’s Which Way Challenge I’m delving into the far past for these old ones. They were taken in 1990 on our overseas trip. I have many more but a lot of that trip was photographed on slide film and I haven’t scanned very many. One day I must finish doing that.
The first one is more of a trail. Newly married couples would come to this spot to tie a ribbon to one of the trees for good luck. We saw it on a guided tour. They probably take selfies there now if it’s still done.
We only had a day and a half in Irkutsk but it was fine sunny winter weather. These were some of my favourite photos from the trip because I liked the architecture and the light was just right that day. I probably took these photos with my Pentax MG or possibly one of our Zenit’s.
Here are a couple of more recent photos.
Pounding the Pavement – New Zealand 2016
