Thursday, 9th February, 2012

I awoke at just before 6am in time to hear Jonesy leaving for the office. It was starting to get light and despite the sun rising and the skies seemingly clear, there was a steady fall of rain. It certainly wasn’t cold, about 20c and the forecast was for a high of 25c but with a reasonable expectation of further precipitation.

New South Wales was having a rather cool and wet summer this year, well, cool and wet by Australian standards. Parts of the north of the State were having flash flooding and some real problems, whilst across the border into Queensland, some serious flooding had been evident for a number of weeks. Extremes of weather the like of which we in the U.K. seldom experience or associate with this huge country.

Anyway, as I was awake it seemed only prudent to get my head down to some work on the laptop, and see if I could connect to the internet wireless connection from the hotel across the road. I’m still wary of this form of connection as it leaves your details open to possible viewing by parties unknown.

It was a good strong signal and allowed me to catch up with incoming mail items and send replies or forward on as appropriate. I’m still pretty useless with computer technology, and even simple tasks are either difficult or completely beyond my current skills.

When I think that I was amongst the first students to take up the computer studies syllabus at my school in the early 1970s. Yes, you cheeky buggers, we did have computers back then. We used to create hole punched data cards at the school then visit the local Civic College where they had computers filling whole rooms and where we could have our cards read at ‘high’ speed.

Isn’t technology marvellous and baffling and beyond me! The size of communication apparatus and the range of ways in which it can utilised never ceases to amaze me. It has most certainly opened up all sorts of opportunities to everyone, from general information to specific searches. I’ve been fortunate to have been able to travel fairly extensively but, for those unable to, computers allow you to view virtually anywhere in the world from your armchair.

The rain had cleared and it seemed only right to take a walk in the lovely warm sunshine. Hamilton, the suburb of Newcastle that I was staying in, is a pleasant area and also has its own ‘cappuccino’ strip in Beaumont Street. It was to this area I walked and took a Flat White at a very pleasant and airy establishment called The 3 Bean. It’s interesting to note that Australia has one of the biggest coffee cultures in the world and grow much of their own coffee. Talking of cultures, I hope I remembered to do the washing up before leaving home!

That evening I was to participate in a Pub Trivia evening. Jonesy and some other lovely friends of his meet regularly as ‘Team Clueless’ to test their knowledge and it must be said, to have a social evening.

I had been drafted into Team Clueless, very apt on my part, during my last visit. Surprisingly I was again invited to add my brain cell to the collective and we managed a creditable equal 3rd placing out of 4 teams! Only kidding, there were 10 teams; the problem was that the other 8 were equal 1st or 2nd!

And so another day passes and to bed to see if I could get up for 5.45am the next morning for a power walk walk with Jonesy and yet another pal, Colin.