I’ve just finished watching the series on ABC iview In Limbo It is a short 6 part half hour episodes based in Brisbane.
It deals with male mental health as the story centres around two mates. One commits suicide and then becomes in ghost like form working with the mate still alive to consider why he has not moved on and what unfinished business he still had to deal with. Where as for the friend still alive he had to come to terms with his own issues and questions of mental health.
The series appealed to me as I have an interest in men’s health and have blogged about this before. I continue to be part of a Men’s Table which I value a lot. There have been a few changes with our table with a couple of members stepping down but now with a pretty regular group of 5. As we have been meeting with each other for more or less a year or two we have developed a deeper appreciation of each other and allowed space for each member to open and share without judgement.
I’ve now worked for the City of Kingston Libraries casually for over a year. I have worked at all of the branches and seen one of our smaller branches closed. I blogged about some of the branches last year. The Westall branch is on the edge of the City of Kingston. Next to and often referred to as the suburb South Clayton. A former industrial area that continues to have a certain amount of factories around the area. The Westall Library is part of a Community Hub between a primary school and a secondary school. The Hub includes a childcare centre and kindergarten as well as a child care nurse and other community facilities. It has a number of school groups visit the library and after school hours is often the hang out spot for kids from the schools to play games, read, and hang out.
One of the more unusual aspects of Westall is that it was the site of a UFO encounter in 1966. There is an original newspaper clipping about the encounter,
We occasionally get requests from people seeking information but our resources are limited mostly to the featured newspaper article from the time. Talking to one of our senior librarians at one time, probably at an anniversary, the library was going to work with the local Westall high school to archive the information and files about the encounter. However when it came time to explore the files it was found that the filing cabinets were empty so the project did not proceed.
In early January my wife and I had a short stay in an AirBnB at Ocean Grove. It was a lovely two bedroom granny flat behind a house on the edge of town. My adult son stayed with us for a couple of nights. We had good weather to enjoy the beach and to do walks. As I was born in Geelong I have fond memories of holidays staying on the Bellarine Peninsula and so over the years my family and I have stayed at various places at various times. I really enjoy early morning bike riding around to the various coastal towns whilst staying in these areas.
I participated in Laps for Life in March raising over $400 and swimming 30 kms over the month. I didn’t heavily promote the charity side of things. Mostly only via Facebook to friends and contacts. Some of whom gave generous donations. The cause it is for, ReachOut is quite worthwhile. Mental health in young people. I have participated in Laps for Life for the last 5 years. I blogged about my participation in it last year.
The added advantage of participating this year was that they had a separate in house facebook page for participants. This turned out to be a great encouragement and connecting point with people doing the swim all over Australia and of various abilities. It also allowed for an outlet for some to share their personal stories of being touched by mental health and set backs in their own lives. Some were undertaking the challenge in memory of known friends who had suicided. Some shared how swimming allowed for a mental health recovery and outlet for themselves. Some were quite open about how undertaking swimming for the first time or after quite a long absence of swimming was their challenge. Through the facebook page there was lots of lovely stories of extending themselves because of the encouragement gained by the facebook page. Many citing that the page is what they wish all social media was like. Through the facebook page, and because when swimming we had a participant swimming cap, I found a few local participants at the various pools I swam at over the month. It was lovely to talk to a couple and share in the encouragement.
We planned to have a short stay in Olinda in December to celebrate our wedding anniversary. However we got a case of COVID so had to isolate rather than travel at that time. We had booked an AirBnB place and the suggestion of the owner was rather than cancel our trip why not reschedule and thus not lose our money. It was a popular accommodation but we were able to find a couple of days available in the school holidays of April. I have previously blogged about a stay in Olinda a few years ago
The forecast was to be cold and wet. It was fairly damp on our arrival. However the next day was clear and allowed for some walks. As a special treat we decided to go to Sassafras to Miss Marple’s Tearooms. It worked out to be good strategy to go about an hour after opening on Monday morning. This allowed for a table if we came back in 15 minutes. This seemed to fit in before a bus of tourists arrived and the folk who had been there when opened for morning tea.
In the afternoon we walked around the gardens. On the final day we had a leisurely breakfast, packed up, and set off to the Sky High Lookout before heading home. At the Lookout you could see a view of Melbourne City. We also did a short walk around the bushlands surrounding the lookout.
In September of 2022 I joined to crowds to try out the new Brimbank Aquatic and Wellness Centre. A vast improvement over the old pool but at a large expense to ratepayers as there was little funding from federal or state sources. Also a bit frustrating that there is no outdoor pool.
My first impression was frustration as the entrance was reversed from the old pool centre from facing Taylors Road to now face a carpark on the opposite side. Lack of signage and a particular lack of accessibility to the centre by transport other than car is also frustrating.
Over the months I have continued to use the pool occasionally but prefer the East Keilor Leisure Centre. I find the keyfob process for entry a bit fiddly and frustrating to get new credits added to your tag. It took me awhile to find where on the website to check when/if lanes were available as I was frustrated to find a couple of times coming to the pool and finding that school groups had booked out the whole swim area. And generally it is often crowded with poor patron etiquette of people swimming slow in fast and/or medium speed lanes and with unsupervised kids playing around lap lanes or crossing over lap lanes.
I have found going in quieter times has been good and it is nice to have an option of swimming in a 25 metre or 50 metre indoor pool lap lane option. It is closer to my home to go to this pool and have worked out a route to ride my bike on mostly off road paths to get to the pool.
I’ve been working for a public library service for over a year now. Post COVID it has taken awhile to recover the volunteer base connected with library services. Home Library Service was quite a valued service during the lockdown periods where it was deemed to be an essential service and those that used the service appreciated the access to books, magazines, DVDs, CDs, and CD talking books.
Around September of 2022 the opportunity was put forth to casuals to assist with the delivery. I undertook a few shifts over a couple of months over the various City of Kingston municipalities. It gave me a deeper insight into the diversity of housing and areas over the area. Some delivery runs included attending nursing homes and aged care facilities.
The bags and contents were organized by other library staff who are allocated Home Library patrons. They liaise with their patrons to select their requirements over a month. The responsibility of delivery was to pick up the library car, a Mazda 6 station wagon, drive to the branch where the bags had been prepared. Load the bags into the back of the car in a pre arranged order of delivery and then to use the car GPS or your phone to deliver. The process was set up to continue to be COVID safe so the participants have to have their returns and last month’s bags on their doorstep, and up to the deliverer to exchange the old bags for the new. Once all delivers done return last month’s bags to the library branch for them to checkin the returned items and reuse the bags for future deliveries. And then return the library car back to its position back at the Parkdale branch.
The challenges included using the library car which, when fully loaded with books, seemed to be a bit of a barge to driver around the narrow suburban streets. The car gps was a bit temperamental I found. One solution I found was to wipe down the interface which over time, and with various users of the car, must have been a bit dirty and marked. Some addresses and frontages of houses were a little hard to find. Bigger deliveries to nursing homes and to a residents in a caravan park were a bit different and difficult to negotiate.
Overall it was a fun experience and good to be paid to do something different. Reminded me of doing pizza deliveries, which I did a long time ago, without the patron interaction.
There were no bookings for the AirBnB accommodation on our departure so the owners allowed us to have a late checkout which was nice as our flight was not till the late afternoon. It was another beautiful summers day. We went for a walk on the Scarborough foreshore and then packed up, and made our way into Brisbane. We ended up at the Roma Street Parkland I had a memory of attending a conference in Brisbane about 20 years ago and meeting with a friend here for lunch. It has certainly been developed a lot since those days. It was a lovely oasis on the edge of the city.
Roma Street Parklands Brisbane
We spent an hour or so just wandering around exploring the different areas and admiring the fauna and flora. Around the shaded areas there were a number of large lizards that scurried along the paths.
We considered walking into the city centre. Being fairly cautious travelers when it comes to catching planes we decided to make our way, with plenty of time, to return the hire car and go to the airport. Overall it was a lovely short stay in Queenland.
We arranged to meet up with a cousin at the cafe we had gone to the day before. Post coffee, cake and chat we had a COVID safe interaction with the aunt we had come to Queensland for to celebrate the milestone birthday. The party will be postponed for a couple of months but we were not intending to return so it was nice to have this interaction. It had been sometime since we had caught up with these relatives.
Windsurfers on Scarborough beach
In the afternoon we drove to Redcliffe and walked on the promenade to Margate. Again impressed with the infrastructure for pedestrians and bike riders on the water front. It was a lovely sunny Summer’s day which by Queensland standards was probably pretty mild but lovely and warm by our Victorian standards.
In mid January we had a family holiday booked to attend a birthday celebration. However just before the event it was cancelled due to COVID. The flights, leave, and accommodation were booked so we decided to take the short break anyway. The flight arrived at an unusually wet Brisbane. However the next day came out fine warm and sunny. The AirBnB studio apartment was just a short walk to the beach. It was wonderful.
We had never stayed in Scarborough before and it was a lovely place to explore. The beach front and bike infrastructure were impressive.
Scarborough beach front and Ibises (bin chickens)
Whilst walking we came across a lovely cafe near the camping ground under shady trees and with a number of ibises (bin chickens) hanging around. The cafe even had spray bottles on table to dissuade the ibises from coming too close.
GraemeO28 Librarian and biker 