Monthly Archives: Jan 2021

If you could live in TV Land…

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If you could live in TV Land, aka your favourite TV show, which one would it be?

For me, I’d live in Coronation Street as I love the cobbles on the street and the feel of the whole street.

Who wouldn’t love to live on a street with your favourite local pub on the corner where you can catch up with mates?

Then you could sleep for as late as possible before getting out of bed and getting ready for work before leaving your house on Coronation Street and be at work in a couple of minutes as you walk to work and not have to drive in peak hour traffic as you travel to and from work.

There’s the friendships on the show between the characters and the fun and humour of the characters.

If you’re hungry, there’s the chippy or the kebab shop. If you want to buy some groceries quickly as you’re halfway through cooking a meal and realise that you have run out of something, it’s just a matter of nipping out to the corner shop and buying what you needed, including a bottle of wine to accompany the meal before quickly going home again to tend to the cooking.

Mind you, everyone would know your business as there would be no secrets on the street and to live so close to work, would have a few setbacks because imagine it, you couldn’t have a sick day and go out for a day of shopping, now could you? Someone from work would see you, right? Lol.

That’s the show I’d love to live in if I could. What about you? What show would you love to live in?

Until next time

Kaye

Australia Day…

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For me, Australia Day is about acknowledging and celebrating everything that makes this country great and everyone in it who calls Australia home, regardless of whether they were born here or came from overseas and choose to call Australia home.

Australia Day is about celebrating it’s diverse people and our unique culture you will not find anywhere else in the world.

There is a song sung by The Seekers called “I Am Australian” and it sums up my feelings for Australia Day perfectly because we are one and we are many and from all the lands on earth we come, we’ll share a dream and sing with one voice I am, you are, we are Australian.

This day also causes division between the traditional land holders of this country with the arrival of Captain Cook’s ship and the colonisation of their lands but also the social injustices caused to them and their people by others since arriving in Australia and taking over the lands of the traditional people.

I hope that we can reconcile as a country and a nation with the first people, to respect each other and to appreciate what we all contribute to making Australia a great place and special place to live.

Until next time

Kaye

Life begins at…

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A friend of mine recently turned 30 and for her it was a big deal, especially when she remarked that she was getting old! I informed her that being 30 is still young… wait until you reach your 40’s and things start going wrong with your body and start failing, that’s getting old lol. She didn’t even want a birthday party to celebrate the milestone, which I thought was crazy!

When I turned 40, I invited a few close friends and my family to dinner at a hotel and we all had a ton of fun and full on laughter. You also have to love the fact that someone else is doing the preparations, the cooking of the meals and the clean up afterwards and you get to bask in the glow of being the guest of honour at your own birthday celebrations.

For me, age is just a number. I didn’t get stressed out at getting older when I turned 30 and it didn’t phase me when I turned 40. As I get closer to turning 50, I might just run away and go on a cruise! Lol…

One of my favourite quotes which I read on a birthday card many years ago and it has stuck with me is, “Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional” and they are words I live by as I’m always cracking jokes and being a big kid!

Embrace life, embrace your age, celebrate the grey hair, the wrinkles, the age spots, the gravity defying body as things begin to sag, live life to the full and be happy in your body.

Another bonus about getting older is that you’ve seen and lived through a lot of history, seen changes in the world with technology, music, fads and fashions come and go, only to come back again a few years or a couple of decades later and in a mixed age group on a trivia night, you will find out how much cool stuff you know to impress those around you and may your team win that trivia night because of all the knowledge inside your head.

This year I will be celebrating turning 50 and for me, it’s still no big deal. I haven’t even experienced having a mid life crisis yet and I know people who have just over the thought that they are getting older and they are trying to recapture their youth. It’s their way of dealing with getting older but for me, I know getting older is a fact of life but I’m still a big kid at heart. My biggest thought about turning 50 is, where to go and celebrate!

Live long and live happy…

Until next time

Kaye

Cruise memories…

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On this day 3 years ago, January 8 2018, I boarded a cruise ship for my very first cruise and that is when my love affair with cruising really began in earnest.

The ship? The Golden Princess from Adelaide, Australia, my home port, to New Zealand and back again to Adelaide, Australia. The Golden Princess was my home away from home for the next 17 nights and I loved every second of my very first cruise. When it became time to disembark, I was thinking of all the ways that I could stowaway on the ship, that is how much I loved my first cruise.

When I became a member on one of the popular cruise sites, a member on that site remarked, “Welcome to the start of your cruise addiction”. How right they were! I’m well and truly hooked and I hope there is no cure for this addiction.

That cruise, I called it the “Go hard or stay home cruise” as 17 nights for a first cruise is pretty hard core, especially if you don’t know whether or not you are actually going to enjoy cruising or not.

Stepping onto the ship that first time was like stepping into another world because once it’s you on board a ship out in the middle of nowhere as there’s nothing but ocean surrounding the ship with no land in sight, it is definitely like being in another world. You also get caught up in the life on the ship where you can do as much or as little as you want, you actually forget that there is a world out beyond the ship and living the ship life.

My second cruise was called the “Go even harder or stay home cruise” as that was in November 2019 and it was for 18 nights going from Adelaide, Australia to Fiji and back again on the Golden Princess. I loved every second of my time on my first cruise on the Golden Princess and I fell in love with the ship, that I had to return on her. The Golden Princess had also been in dry dock in Singapore during the month of April 2018 and got a makeover in some of the public areas and so the second cruise on the Golden Princess was to see what changes had been made. It was fun playing “spot the difference”. (Now she’s been sold to P&O Australia and will become The Pacific Adventure when cruising returns to Australia.)

As a Pisces, this fish loves to cruise… why swim when you can get on a ship, right? Lol

On both my cruises, I met wonderful and interesting people, I explored lands I had never been to, I had fun and adventure on board the ship and with the locals I met during shore excursions.

When things return to normal, or whatever the new normal will be, I will be back cruising again. Cruising is my happy time. Being on a cruise ship is my happy place. I’ll just give the cruise lines and the passengers on the ships a few cruises to fine tune whatever covid safe restrictions and protocols they will have in place to ensure everyone’s safety before I board a cruise ship again but I will be on one.

Until I am able to get on another cruise ship, I’ll look at the photos and videos from both my cruises and relive some wonderful memories.

Until next time

Kaye

Raindrops on Roses…

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On Saturday night one of my all time favourite movies was on TV. If the title doesn’t give away which movie it is, I’ll tell you, The Sound of Music. For those who have never seen The Sound of Music, warning, there are major spoilers ahead… you have been warned…

It doesn’t matter that I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen this movie, whenever it comes on TV, you’ll find me watching it and singing along to the songs.

I’ve also read the book written by Maria Von Trapp which the movie is based on. (I won’t provide any spoilers for those who want to find the book and read it).

This is a movie that appeals to people because there’s something in it for everyone… it has beautiful costumes of the era of World War II, the “underdog” Maria who does indeed have confidence to not only get the Von Trapp children to fall in love with her, Captain Von Trapp eventually does as well heart and she becomes his wife and step mother or Mother to his children. So you have the big romantic story as well. There’s the songs you can’t help but sing along to. There’s the baddies to boo at, like the German’s and Baroness Von Schrader for just getting in the way between the Captain and Maria and their romance. There’s the humour throughout the movie as well and to top it off, there’s a wedding.

The Sound of Music for me is a movie that will never get old and will be always timeless. It will never be outdated either because over the course of time, The Sound of Music has indeed become a timeless and much loved classic, which will attract future generations of people to fall in love with this enchanting movie, just as it has made generations of people fall in love with it already.

May the hills always be alive with the sound of music…

Until next time

Kaye

Cruising life…

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One of the many things I missed this year because of the coronavirus pandemic is cruising.

I’ve been on 2 cruises in my life. The first cruise was 17 nights on board the Golden Princess in January 2018, going from Adelaide, Australia to New Zealand and return. My second cruise was on board the same ship, the Golden Princess, leaving Adelaide and going to Fiji and back again for 18 nights in November 2019.

I loved both cruises and definitely found my happy place. I met new people and had a wonderful adventure on both cruises. I saw beautiful scenery from the ship and while doing shore excursions. I had taken lots of photos on my phone to remember my cruises by.

What I would really love to do right now is go on a cruise but I can’t because no one is travelling anywhere. It’s okay, I’m patient, I can wait for it to become safe to cruise again. I have my photos and videos to look at when I am experiencing “cruise withdrawals”, they put a smile on my face and give me a laugh as I remember some of the funny stuff that happened on the ship.

We will be back to being able to go on a cruise again, I know that but first, we must be safe to be able to get on ships again.

I have no issues with following advice from the medical experts about social distancing, wearing face masks, using hand sanitiser and everything else they advise to do. I do it because I want to not get this virus but also to keep others around me safe. You can bet that I will have the vaccine as well, once it has been proven to be safe with testing.

If I have to wear a face mask, have my temperature taken, hand sanitise or whatever else the cruise line informs me to do while on board a ship, I will do it, I don’t have a problem with it.

Right now, I am content with just having my memories and my photos and videos because I know that once this covid-19 or coronavirus is a thing of the past, we will be back on the ships and cruising again. Hopefully.

Until next time

Kaye

Welcome to 2021

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What a year was 2020?! I’m glad that year is over. It was a crazy year for this Australian, let me tell you. We started off the year with devastating bushfires, or wild fires if you are from the US. Then we had in parts of Australia over on the east coast severe flooding and then just when you thought things can only get better, boom, the Coronavirus pandemic came along and turned the world inside out.

2020 has certainly been a roller coaster of a ride and still is for many as we go into 2021. During 2020, many of us had to learn to adapt with no hugging, no hand shakes, sneeze and cough into the crook of your arm please, no gathering in large groups and social distancing is a must, we have used so much hand sanitiser on our hands that we have almost taken off the fingerprints on our hands. We have used social media and websites like YouTube and Zoom for connecting with friends and family, or for work

During 2020 we worked from home, unless you were an essential worker, we isolated and went back to basics since people found they had a lot of time to cook from scratch or learn a language or a craft. We used social media, YouTube and Zoom for connecting with friends and family or for work. We did school, meetings, work church and life in general using technology as we had to think outside the box while communicating and observing social distancing.

May 2021 bless you and keep you safe. May the new year ahead fill your days with much love, fun and laughter.

Finally, could someone please explain to me what the craziest of crazy toilet paper hoarding was all about? That one was completely lost on me and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one?! Lol

Until next time

Kaye

Welcome

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Welcome to my blog, dear reader. This is where my mind will roam free. There will be all kinds of content here, depending upon what is on my mind. I hope that you will find it interesting to read anyway.

Here will be topics regarding life, cruising, current affairs, random events and things that appear in my mind… welcome everyone.

Until next time