A helping hand when needed…

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Living in Australia there’s something we are very familiar with unfortunately and that is bushfires during the summer.

I remember late 2019 early 2020 when almost every state or territory in Australia was devastated by bushfires. Firefighters doing everything they could to contain the fires and do everything they could to put them out.

Many homes were lost, livestock was lost, businesses, farms, livelihoods, dreams were all gone and burnt to the ground.

It was a devastating and heartbreaking time for many.

Some people were lucky to escape with just the clothes on their back as all their personal possessions, along with their homes, all went up in smoke.

Wild animals didn’t escape the fires either with a lot of wild animals losing their life in the fire or having to be put down because they were too seriously injured.

It was a time I will never forget as my state of South Australia had multiple serious bushfires burning in the state.

During this time, Australian’s pulled together to help each other in a time of crisis. People opened up their homes to give those who lost theirs a roof over their heads. People donated clothes, food, whatever to help those in need.

One of the highlights I remember is how other countries sent volunteers to help our Australian firefighters fight those devastating fires which were the worst bushfires Australia had ever seen.

One of those countries who sent volunteer firefighters was Canada.

As Canada is experiencing their worst forest fires, I thank our Australian government for sending volunteer firefighters to Canada to go help them.

This is something I love about our global community. When a country needs help, other countries from around the world hear the call and send help.

As parts of Canada burn, or are under threat, I think about them and I send prayers their way for those who are fighting those fires, for all who are affected by the forest fires, the animals – pets and wildlife, those who volunteer their services and their time to help in various capacities, for rain to help put out the fires. They need our prayers and our positive thoughts right now.

I hope that the firefighters get the fires contained and under control as soon as they can and be able to extinguish the fires.

If you are asked to evacuate, do it because if the fires are on you, no firefighter is going to risk saving your property. If you aren’t prepared to fight for your property if it is under threat from the forest fires, then go to the evacuation areas early while you safely can. Stay safe and take care everyone who is anywhere near the forest fires in Canada.

Until next time

Kaye

Just living in the… 80’s

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Hands up who remembers the 1980’s? I certainly do! I was a teenager at the time and living through the 80’s, it felt like a decade that was special as we were experiencing life during this period and that people would be talking about how good this decade was when they were looking back at it. For those who missed life through the 80’s but love the music and hearing about life during the 80’s, this is a list of what you missed and so here are the things I remember of what the 1980’s were about:

Big hair
Rubik’s cubes
Shoulder pads
Slouch socks
Hyper colour t-shirts
Rollerskates
Rollerskating rinks
Walkmans
Boomboxes/Ghetto blasters
Break dancing
Flouro t-shirts
Tracksuits made out of parachute material
Huge mobile (cell phones) phones and you had to carry the battery in a battery case on your shoulder
Atari
Commodore 64
Pacman
Asteroids
Space Invaders
Frogger
Pong
Video game arcades
Amusement arcades
Elastics
Uno
Denim shirts/jackets/skirts
Computers with green screens
Floppy disks
Records
Cassette tapes
No pay tv, just Channels 2, 7, 9 and 10
Betamax and VHS VCR’s
Rotary telephones
No internet
No mobile/cell phones
No social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube etc
No Google – we had to go to the library to look things up or look it up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica
Red Rover
Brandy – the game, not the alcohol
Spokey Dokey’s – Putting cards from cereal boxes in the spokes of your bicycle to make some cool noises
Stirrup pants
Jelly bracelets
Clogs
Rats Tails
Mullets
Holes in your jeans – sorry people who wear that fashion today, people in the 80’s bet you to it! Lol
Stone wash jeans
Acid wash jeans
t-shirts 4 sizes too big
Legwarmers
Wearing your collar up, even on polo shirts
Simon says
Hopscotch
Cabbage Patch Kids
Tonka Trucks
Banana seat bicycles
Nerf balls
Hoola Hoops
Swatch watches
Koosh balls
Kazoos
Etch-A-Sketch
Slinkies
Matchbox Cars
Lego blocks
Yo yo’s
Smelly pens and markers
80’s music
Candy cigarettes
West Coast Wine Cooler – for those over 18
PEZ
Bubble tape
Choose your Own Adventure Books
BMX bikes
The Big Mac song, “Two all beef patties, special sauce…”
Crimping irons
Putting the empty plastic potato chip bags in the oven to shrink them
Care Bears
Synthesizers
Soda Stream soft drink makers
Carrying the pack of cigarettes in the rolled up sleeve of your t-shirt

These are some of the memories I have of the 1980’s, what are things you remember?

Anyone who was born after the 1980’s really did miss an incredible decade. I’m glad that I got to experience it first hand, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!

Here’s to all of us who lived and survived through the 1980’s!

I’m glad you took this walk down memory lane with me, hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time

Kaye

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When the universe and life throw stuff at you, you had better be prepared for it, good, bad or indifferent.

Life has throw at me some heavy stuff this year, so much for starting 2023 of on a positive note and starting off the year in a good way.

It seems my 2023 is a continuation of my 2022… one steaming hot pile of manure…

2022 started the year of upheaval in all aspects of my life… work, home, health and the stuff that has happened, without going into detail, it’s been huge and I feel broken deep within.

I’m not writing this for a pity party because I’m not. 2022 was a huge year of upheaval for me, which is continuing into 2023. Despite everything that is going on, I’ve strapped myself into the roller-coaster of life and I’m in for the ride… all the twists, the turns, the sharp corners, going upside down, I’m there for it all.

One thing I’m looking forward to though is after all the tough stuff has been dealt with and I’m on the other side of it all, I look forward to being the butterfly I am going to become.

Through the storms of life, as the storm rages, you’ll go through hard stuff, tough stuff but eventually the storm will pass and you will find yourself in calm waters again. It’s not going to happen overnight but it will happen. Have faith and belief that the storm will pass and you will get through to the other side.

The other thing is that the storms of life are often experiences of personal growth and realising how strong and resilient you really are.

Right now in this storm I’m going through in my life, I picture myself as a caterpillar, then in a cocoon but I know that the beautiful butterfly that I’m about to become, that is worth all the tough stuff life and the universe is handing me right now.

Watch out world… that beautiful butterfly is coming… it’s not going to happen overnight but she’s preparing herself and proving how strong and resilient she is in the process.

Until next time

Kaye

New things in life…

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A couple of weeks ago I went to see an optometrist as a suggestion from my doctor who wanted to see if my eyes were being affected by the start of an early medical diagnosis.

I went to the optometrist and was taken into an examination room where she  checked both my eyesight and if my eyes were affected by this medical condition.

The eye test was first, with reading lines and letters on a mirror, first the right eye and then the left, then given a card to read, I was able to easily read the small print with both the right eye and then the left eye, I was told I needed glasses for distance sight and my reading sight was still good.

Then the optometrist put drops in my eyes for her to be able to see the back of my eyes… those drops as they went in, stung a little bit as they did make my sight go blurry as she said it would. I was then informed that the drops will take 10 – 15 minutes to take effect.

So with 15 minutes to wait, I went and was going to get a quote for the glasses. There were a range of glasses frames being sold for half price, so I was directed to them. After trying on several pairs, I found the frame I wanted, with flexible arms and not chunky, or frames that stick out like a dog’s hind leg. Once the frames were chosen, I sat down in the front of the store and the quote was worked out… lenses – magnification with transition tinting and digital glare free. After being told the price and knowing that I’m going to need these glasses, I decided to just get them. Lucky for me as well, I do have optical as an option with my private fund, so they paid for the bulk of the cost of these glasses, I just had to pay for the gap.

Now that the frames were chosen and what I wanted was included as well, the order was put in to be processed.

By this time, the optometrist was ready for me again. I went back into the examination room and sat back down in the chair. A machine was manoeuvred towards me that the optometrist used to look into my eyes, the lights of the room were turned down and the optometrist used this machine and a bright light shining into the parts of the eye she was looking at, she did her thing. First the right eye and then the left.

One thing she did notice, apart from my eyes not being affected by the medical condition but I do have a freckle at the back of my eye, which is something they will keep an eye on yearly.

Today, I picked up my new glasses, or as I refer to them, my new friends.

Am I bothered by the fact that I now have to wear glasses? No because if they help me to see in the distance as they are designed to do, that’s going to be something in my favour, although it is quite humorous seeing people in a particular age group in denial they do need glasses for reading lol.

So for anyone who does wear glasses, I’ve joined you all now… and I can see clearly now, so that is definitely a good thing.

Until next time

Kaye

Don’t judge it before you try it…

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As someone who is in their 50’s, I think I’ve become “one of the cool kids”… okay, maybe not but I did become somewhat cool lol.

I have Facebook, heck, nearly every man, woman, teenager and their dog, cat or bird has a Facebook account but watching the reels on Facebook, I noticed that there were a lot of videos that were posted from Tiktok in the Facebook reels.

Seeing all the Tiktoks on the Facebook reels made me decide to check out what Tiktok was all about as the videos I was watching on Facebook, weren’t what I thought Tiktok was all about.

For me, Tiktok was all about teenagers trying to post dancing videos to get them trending and make them go viral… boring having to watch virtually the same thing on repeat with all the videos, I thought.

Then I decided, what the hell, I’ll make a Tiktok account just to see what Tiktok is really about for myself, so I did. I thought if I didn’t like it, I could delete it.

On 18 June 2022, I embarked into the world of Tiktok with my newly created account. Wow… life was changed from that moment on! Once you have joined Tiktok, life will never be the same again, if you haven’t taken the plunge yourself, trust me.

I joined and I only knew 3 people in my real world who were on Tiktok already and I found them and followed them so I wasn’t alone in this strange world of Tiktok, trying to figure out how it all works… thank you Google for telling me at the start on how to use Tiktok lol. Yes, Google is my best friend, it knows lots more random stuff than I do!

When I joined Tiktok, I never thought I would travel to different places around the world or meet amazing people I have met, a lot of them, I now call friends. It’s fun travelling to different locations here in Australia, or around the world, travelling by Tiktok Airlines and doing Tiktok Travel.

On Saturday 9 July 2022, I was excited by making my first Tiktok friend, who was doing a live, short for livestream, in Melbourne by the Yarra River in the South Bank area of the sunset from there. The sunset was amazing and as I watched the host’s live, the host was talking to me in the chat and she was being friendly towards me and welcoming. It made this Tiktok newby happy to be able to watch the live and see the views that I was familiar with after many visits to Melbourne myself. On the Sunday, this person was out in the same area doing another spectacular sunset live. I have the screenshots to prove how spectacular these sunsets were… too bad I didn’t know then how to swipe the comments off the screen lol.

This person, she slowly introduced me to her main group of Tiktok lives as she walked around Melbourne over the next few weeks, all amazing people and they all let me hang out with them when they are doing a live. Now I’m meeting more of them, it’s pretty amazing.

I’ve also made friends overseas as well by scrolling through the vast variety of lives and joining in to watch and make comments in the chat. Thank you Tiktok for making the world a not so big place to live in.

The thing I didn’t know because Tiktok don’t tell you this because they inform everyone that you need 1,000 followers to go live… here’s a tip for someone who needs to know this bit of information because they want to go live on Tiktok, here in Australia, you only need 500 followers to go live, I had 513 followers on my back up account and was able to go live on that account. On my main account, I had 943 followers and discovered then that I could go live.

Going live now means that I can do livestreams and get into the guest boxes in the chats. The age for going live is going to change on 23 November 2022 to 18 years and over, sorry kids, the age limit was 16 years old or over to be able to go live.

Since joining Tiktok, the TV is feeling neglected as I’m watching a lot of lives or watching friends videos. There’s always something interesting to watch or friends to talk to during a live.

I also discovered that Tiktok isn’t what I thought it was. It’s better and I’m loving it.

Until next time

Kaye

New beginnings…

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Last night, I watched the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II on the TV.

It was a beautiful ceremony with all the pomp and ceremony you would expect to see in a Royal funeral for a monarch but it wasn’t over the top.

The state funeral for the Queen had seen her travel through the streets of London on an 100 year gun carriage to Westminster Abbey for the main part of the funeral.

Then the Queen’s coffin was taken through the streets of London where a car was waiting for her to take her to St George’s Church for her committal into the family crypt at Windsor Castle, the home she dearly loved.

The Queen has now been reunited with her grandparents, her parents, her sister and her husband in the family crypt.

In St George’s Church, the Orb, the Sceptre and the Crown which was placed on top of the coffin for the entire service in Westminster Abbey, they were removed from her coffin and taken away. For me, it was the Queen, officially stepping down off the throne and from the service she spent 70 years of her life doing and passing on the baton to her son, King Charles to continue on as the new reining monarch.

It was a beautiful and moving funeral. Thank you Queen Elizabeth II for being my Queen. Thank you for your leadership, your inspiration, thank you for caring during times of crisis in our world with your calming words. Thank you for taking on the role and responsibility for those 70 years, even though being the Queen wasn’t something intentionally planned for you, you took the role and the responsibility on with good grace and good humour.

Rest well Queen Elizabeth II, now you are reunited with your husband again, I know you couldn’t wait to be with him again.

As Paddington Bear said best while sharing a cup of tea and a love for marmalade sandwiches together, “Thank you for everything Ma’am”.

Until next time

Kaye

A whole new world…

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This is not a post I want to write. It is a post I really didn’t want to write but here I am writing this post.

The reason why I didn’t want to write this post was because of the subject, the sad passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

Regardless of whether you liked her or not, she has been in most people’s lives, for their whole life, including mine. I don’t know what it is like to live in a world without the Queen being in it.

The Queen was born on 21 April 1926 and passed away at the age of 96 on 8 September 2022. A public holiday is celebrated in June for the Queen’s birthday here in Australia.

Doctor’s were concerned about her medical condition and the family were called together at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where the Queen was at the time. Several hours after the reports in the news of their being concern for the Queen’s health and the family gathering, a few hours later, news broke of her passing.

With the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles automatically becomes the King of the UK and the Commonwealth. Camilla, will not become Queen but will be known as the King’s Consort.

I went to bed last night, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth II and when I woke up this morning, Australia was under the reign of King Charles.

My social media was flooded with tributes for the Queen’s passing. I had to get off the social media as it was too overwhelming to read all the posts acknowledging her passing and paying tribute to her life.

Thank you, Your Majesty for your service as Monarch, to your Country and to the Commonwealth. Thank you for being my Queen. There will never be anyone like you. You will be missed.

Now instead of people singing God Save the Queen, it will be God Save the King.

Prince Charles, now King Charles has big shoes to fill but I believe he will fill them, he has been prepared for this day, as the next in line to the throne.

Rest well Queen Elizabeth II, you have earned your rest. It’s time to be reunited with Prince Philip and your parents.

Until next time

Kaye

The magic of one…

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It’s taken me a few days to be able to put the words together about how I feel about this… the passing of Olivia Newton John. I like many others are heart broken by her passing.

As a Gen X, I grew up listening to her music and watching her movies and I now feel as though I have lost a close friend, even though she didn’t even know me.

Australia and the world lost a beautiful woman who had the heart and soul to match her outward beauty. She was a woman who gave greatly with her talent but also with her time and her money towards the things she cared deeply about.

Olivia Newton John was a genuine person and she will be greatly missed in this world. She has left behind her legacy with the people she touched, her music, her movies, the projects she supported but not only that but with her family and her friends she left behind.

For me and for many others, I think in years to come, we will remember what we were doing when we heard the news of Olivia Newton John’s passing. A friend told me that she had died in a text message, so I got onto Facebook after that and reading people’s posts and comments on the news pages I have on my Facebook, the tears started flowing.

During the day, I saw many Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok posts with people paying their own respects in their way to Olivia. They too had me shedding quite a few tears.

She may have been born in the UK but Australia adopted her as one of our own quickly. She loved Australia as much as Australia loved her.

On the night of 8 August 2022, one of the TV stations here in Australia played the movie Grease in honour of the passing of Olivia Newton John. I watched the movie, I’ve seen it many times as it’s a firm favourite, then there were moments I cried during the film that featured heavily Olivia, the end of the film had me in tears too as the car took flight into the clouds.

Thank you Olivia for the music and the movies for they will live on in our hearts. Thank you for being the person you were. Earth has lost an angel but she has grown her wings and is with the angels in heaven.

Until next time

Kaye

Moving with the times…

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As a Generation X, I grew up not having a mobile (cell) phone as they didn’t exist then.

Our social networking was sending hand written letters and cards in the mail, or using a manual type writer to type a letter to someone. We actually went over to a friend’s house or called them on a landline rotary or push button phone to talk to them. We bumped into people we knew while out shopping or in the street and we stopped and talked with them.

As the late 1980’s came, so did mobile phones, which weren’t what we have now… these phones had huge handsets and the battery for the phone was carried separately in its own shoulder bag.

Not everyone had a mobile phone then either, only the YUPPIES (Young Urban Professionals), business executives or trades people had them.

Computers too only came into main use in the late 1980’s… remember the big monitors and hard drives? The floppy disks were huge as well. The printers would use a style of their own, dot matrix.

Time has definitely changed things with technology. Same with social media.

I love how technology has changed. Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy looking at the new technology available and what is possible for the future. I also enjoy social media as well.

I know there’s a lot of social media platforms available and I use several of them – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Tiktok in particular.

I’ve only just got onto Tiktok as I thought it was just for teenagers who want to show of new dance moves in videos that have gone viral but I’ve realised that it’s more than that.

What I love about Twitter and Tiktok is the learning about other countries and the connection with other people from around the world, especially during the lives on Tiktok.

I have made some good friends on Twitter who are now my friends on Facebook and I’m making friends on Tiktok as well. I love how social media makes a world seem like a smaller place to live. I also enjoy how you can chat online with people around the world in real time and it can be morning, afternoon, evening or night time.

During the covid-19 pandemic that swept the world, with people having to isolate or be in quarantine, technology played a bigger part in our lives, as did social media.

With offices and buildings closing or reducing staff numbers in an effort to stop the spread of the covid-19 virus, we learned how to work from home. Education, normally done in the classroom was done online. Church services started going online too for many churches, there was more online buying, cash wasn’t being accepted by most places and became cashless as long as you had a plastic card from your bank or credit union to use.

Meetings were done by Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams during the covid-19 pandemic. Friends socialised on the social media platforms because of the restrictions for how many people were allowed in the home.

As far back as 2019, before we had even heard the word coronavirus or covid-19, there were those who would be saying that technology and social media were keeping people isolated from others and how bad technology and social media is.

With the covid-19 pandemic, it was technology and social media that was keeping people in contact with each other, so we learned that yes, technology and social media can be our friend and can keep people together, talking to each other, keeping people connected.

I’m excited to see how technology changes for the future and what social media platforms will become the next big thing.

For me, my Facebook is for people who know me in real life and for those I’ve gotten to know over time through talking with them through social media.

For Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok, you can find me by my username kayezee71.

Until next time

Kaye

Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours….

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On Thursday night, 28 July 2022, Australian TV show, Neighbours had its final episode air on TV after 37 years.

873,000 people in Australia tuned in for the last time to watch the final episode.

Over the 37 years and 8,903 episodes of Neighbours, Ramsay Street has seen
180,000 scenes being filmed (I have no idea how many scenes would have been dropped on the cutting room floor or were bloopers)
100+ kidnapping/hostage situations
35 natural disasters
115 car crashes (or accidents)
64 deaths
39 weddings
17 births

Tonight, Monday at 6.30pm, I think it’s going to really sink in for many of us who are still in denial that Neighbours has ended after being on our TV screens for 37 years, when we turn on the TV out of habit to watch the show, only to remember with sadness that the show has truly ended.

I love how they brought back as many of the past cast as they could and the little “Easter eggs” they put in as well into the final episode.

I enjoyed seeing Kylie and Jason back again as the shows “super couple” Scott and Charlene and how their presence didn’t take anything away from the current cast.

Susan’s monologue at the end, had me in tears as she walked around the street looking at everyone gathered there for Toadie and Melanie’s wedding reception and she was looking at everyone during her monologue, tying it all in perfectly together.

I think the way they left things open was well done because it gave me the feeling that life will go on in Ramsay Street, regardless of the show ending.

I was celebrating my 14th birthday on the night Neighbours began on the 18 March 1985 and now I am 51, feeling as though I have lost a good friend as the show has been on a good part of my life. I will definitely miss the show and the life of the residents of Ramsay Street. I was there watching the debut of Neighbours.

I remember visiting Melbourne years ago and standing in “Ramsay Street” on a spur of the moment day trip one day, with a friend. That is a happy memory for me, standing there on Pin Oak Court, South Vermont, Victoria, Australia aka Ramsay Street.

I was gutted when I thought the Ramsay Street history book was destroyed and cheered when the young people made a new book along with a Ramsay Street Facebook page (Who actually got onto Facebook to see if the Facebook page really existed? I didn’t) Now, can we persuade someone to actually publish a real Neighbours history book? That would be amazing if it could happen. So many people have been a part of the show, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. I for one would definitely buy it and I know I wouldn’t be the only one.

Thank you to the Neighbours cast and crew who over the last 37 years made magic happen in making an unique TV show and giving we viewers an escape for 30 minutes in our lives to enter your world. I’m going to miss catching up with the Neighbours and having a “cuppa” with them all while catching up with the everything going on in Erinsborough.

Okay, you didn’t think that I wouldn’t finish this post off without a Neighbours theme tune sing along did you? Here’s the words, happy singing…

Until next time

Kaye