Down Under Diaries: Tuesday, April 17th, Day 37

What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

Danetree Rainforest

Good to hear from you again Patrick.

I see SE Queensland and NSW are having heavy rain and hope you might escape this.

Rumbles of thunder here in Wetherby and cold temperatures for April everywhere in UK after some early spring weather in March. Haven't heard from Ray for a while so clueless to Vancouver weather.

Chris and I are up and down the road to Northallerton Hospital where my mother is - she is looking extremely frail but soldiering on. The hospital want her to move out to a nursing home which we are beginning to investigate with my sister. In our language she is"bed-blocking".

Its been a hard time for her over the last 9 weeks or so in the two hospitals and at times she is clearly sick of things.

Managed a rail trip to Newcastle upon Tyne on my birthday last week to see Laura ( baby due in late June)and her husband Ed and we had a meal with them at lunchtime and a drink after their work in addition to exploring the Discovery Centre (Newcastle based museum), the Baltic Gallery( not entirely my cup of tea) and the Castle which gives the city its name. Parked the car at York to save the drive up.

Chris and I had a bike ride on Sunday but returned early due to the cold and inadequate dress so I finished off on the exercise bike and with some weights in the garage. My running has come to another halt due to tendonitis but am still doing things most days- ie a ride, static bike, walking, weights or some tennis activity. When we were last in OZ we bought second hand bikes and used them at Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast for 6 weeks and then traded them in- this worked well apart from the occasional attacks from the bloody magpies- most unpleasant territorial birds in my opinion. I have never seen Christine move so fast when one swooped towards her. I took to whirling branches around my head. We couldn't understand until we were attacked why the locals had bits of plastic sticking out from their helmets

One of my birthday presents was a subscription to Funbridge which I am enjoying and to humour me Christine, Laura and Ed played a few real hands with or for me. Still haven't worked out if Funbridge uses different scoring system from the UK. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

We still hope to get away to Dubrovnik and Montenegro on May 6 after hopefully seeing Sylvia in late April, early May. This will be our first experience of an accompanied holiday- ie guide and other people on same buses and in same hotels. If this succeeds we might even try a cruise which so far I have avoided.

Leaving aside family matters the Oz exchange rate puts me off planning holidays there for the time being. Seeing the exchange rate plunge from 2.4 to 1.45 over the last three years is a hard ask even tho the flights aren't affected in this way. Being away for say 8 weeks seems also out of the question for the present too.

Richard our son is expected back next week after a long spell skiing in Japan and some further touring including their being chased off a volcano this week with danger of poisonous gases. We hope he will restart his career on return?

Hope you and Corinne continue to enjoy your extended holiday. Regards Jim