Asafo flags of the Fante people of Ghana

These flags come from Ghana, and were made by different ‘companies’ of the coastal Fante people. The ones with the Union Jack in the corner date back to before Ghana's independence, when it was a British colony known as the Gold Coast. The history behind all this is complex, but it seems the colonising British allied with the Fante against the more powerful Ashanti empire. In each locality the Fante formed military units or companies. They would choose a captain, and each new captain of a company would commission a flag. The companies fought amongst themselves and often the flags referred to rivalries, and symbolised boasts of their own prowess and ridicule of other companies.

The interpretations of the symbology are fascinating; so different to western interpretations of our symbols. Eg the first flag illustrates the proverb “We can carry water in a basket using a cactus as a head cushion” meaning “we can do the impossible.”

The flags often incorporate new technology such as trains and planes as symbols for power. The train in the last flag is adorable.

Bring a PICNIC & rat

Tuesday Night Soccer 19.11.19

I can't believe how much time has passed since I did one of these reports. I have played every 3 weeks or so, so that's quite a few skipped reports. I've been managing the bone inflammation pretty well, seems like giving it a week or more to settle down between outings is the key.

But now I am also dealing with plantar fasciitis in my left foot. When it flares up its 8/10 painful. It doesn't stop me playing, but the next day its very tender. Even then I can walk on it OK once I get up to speed. Colleagues in the office mostly see me hopping about  in my first dozen steps after getting up from a long stint at the computer – I assume they assume I have gout.

To the game, it started as a 6 v 5 but Pete picked up an injury very early. I started playing for Black, but once we'd lost our numerical advantage we struggled. So we stopped the game and I swapped for Johnno in a classic old & slow/young & fast exchange, and I continued as White.

I kicked Black's first two goals; a long range toe poke from the right that caught Rob out, and a short range shuffle-and-place to Cam's right. Then later I got two for White. The ball came to me with my back to the net just metres out and managed to spin and nutmeg Pat in goals - or so Matt said. I didn't see it. Then soon after I was out on the left hanging forward and joined a 3-on-1 attack, Rob slid it across and I was lucky not to put it over the bar, went into the roof of the net.

Other highlights: I made a few good saves; and somehow tricked Johnno over by the bench seats wing.

Extra injury note: my long term sore right ankle was really stinging by the time I got home, and with the fasciitis in my left foot it was my slowest ever walk up to the front door from the car.

Black: Ben, Pat, me, Pete, Young Sean, ?
White: Cam, Johnno, Rob, Matt, Andrew

Enormous family update

Christmas is racing into view, and it’s time to start writing the annual Christmas Thing that we send out with our cards. But before I do that I'm going to write an update here. The blog has been shamefully overlooked this year. I have just added the Blogger app to my smartphone* and I intend to use it, and genuinely blog on the go.

First: the four of us are all healthy and things are generally going well. I wanted to get that in there because it seems like quite often family news is a subhead people use before they announce they are separating or moving to Canada or both.

I looked back over emails and so on, to get a rough idea of what to put in the Christmas Thing. I was struck by how much time we spent earlier in the year at the vet, phoning the vet, emailing the vet, and generally agonising over what was best for our animals. Hattie passed away in July, and already the miserable times of her decline are telescoping down in my memory to be just a small bump in her long, happy life. At the time we really agonised over what was best to do, and then taking her to the vet for the last time and watching her end was very hard for me. This is a song I'll always associate with saying goodbye to Hat – it won't make logical sense to anyone but it belongs here for me.

Around the same time Winston went through a bad patch where he seemed to injure his shoulders very easily. He was struggling with the stairs. We had to confine him to home, and try everything we could to make his life ergonomically better. We shelled out for scans and tests that didn't reveal any damage. And we were told that he's in terrific general health for a dog of his age and size; and they said we should have another three years at least with him. I can't bear to imagine a time without him – so I have allowed that advice to go in one ear and out the other. He now has arthritis medicine every morning and seems a lot more resilient.

Michael is approaching the end of Grade 10. His big achievement this year was a three-week school trip to China, which included an eleven-day trek around Minya Gongga in Western Sichuan. They also spent time in Chengdu, Xian and Beijing. Their timing was very lucky; thanks to celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the revolution, the crowds were all elsewhere when they visited both the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors.

Michael is back into the humdrum routine of high school now, and looking forward to moving on, much as Marcus did towards the end of Grade 10. We have suggested he treat Grade 11 at Hobart College as a chance to just study subjects that sound interesting. It would be revolutionary for him (and us) to have him really engaged at school and loving what's he learning there. He is a person who loves to learn, and the depth and breadth of his knowledge is extraordinary – but he has never found school to be a place where he learns more.

He has a resume now and Elf took him on a circuit of likely employers to drop it off. While we were fine-tuning it I was really delighted that he was happy to include "intending to study Linguistics at university" because, even though I assumed that was where he was heading, he has never been prepared to say so in so many words.

We are regularly minding an 8-year old neighbour for one evening each month, and Michael has shown a really great ability to be patient, caring and even stern (when required) with Finton. Now that I work full time, Michael is our chief dog walker, and he has just assimilated this and other responsibilities as they have come along. He's a wonderful boy.

Marcus (right) competing in some kind of Art Battle at Youth Arc

Marcus has had an amazing year. To recap, he was in Grade 11 at Hobart College last year but studying Maths at University of Tasmania through the college High Achievers Program. Then the Uni swooped with an offer for him to study full-time at uni this year, without waiting to complete his TCE or get an ATAR score. We discussed it and felt that he was academically ready and mature enough to make the step, and it has been very successful.

Years ago when we were first navigating the ‘gifted children’ world (both boys have been categorised this way) we were told that a gifted child will not just cope when they are pushed up a grade, they will thrive. And we have found that all along with Marcus. (Michael unfortunately has never loved school but we haven't ever got the feeling that he'd be happier if he was one grade back, in his age cohort. He's just a very different specimen).

Marcus has navigated the challenges of his work and social life really well. He’s surrounded by uni students, 99% of whom are over 18. And now his own friends have almost all turned 18 too, so everyone is going to pub quiz nights and just casually ordering wine at the cafe while he can't. But he seems to be coping with that with maturity and good sense, and he is blessed with a group of really switched-on friends. He is tutoring a Grade 12 student in maths, and as well as income this has given him a huge sense of achievement; as she has progressed from a D student to a solid B. He has a lovely girlfriend who is also a real bright spark. I hope we will have him at home with us for some time yet but he is applying for scholarships all over the place.

This is something I will have to face one day: what is the natural end point for a blog about Dadness - can it continue when the subjects of the Dadness have moved out?

Elf now works four days a week, and Wednesday is the day when she gets a small bit of 'me time' but a long list of errands to run and jobs to do. Elf is our long-term thinker, and it’s safe to say everything that needs to happen over a timeframe further out than next Tuesday, falls to Elf. I am more of an take-out-the-bins and catch-the-spiders kind of guy. Elf has been at her workplace for long enough now that she is properly appreciated, but also important and complex things are saved for her to do because she “does them properly”.

I have been working full time at Red Jelly for the last few months. I felt like freelancing was running out of puff, so I had looked around for a while for jobs elsewhere but none materialised. So I decided it was time to go see the boss at Red Jelly and say "if you want me here I am ready to go full time". They were in the throes of putting together a team to do client events (Woolworths conferences and so on) and so they tapped me for that.

It has been pretty hectic. The events are massive; my first one was a gathering of every Woolworths deli manager in Australia, about 2200 of them. The work hours leading up to an event blow out to 12, 14, 16 hours a day. And during rehearsal and the event itself it's a 20+ hour workday.  Yes, I know, it's insane.

Time will tell if this a job I can do long term. I hope that I'll be able to influence how we do these events, so we'll take a larger team, work shifts, and put the whole thing on a sustainable footing which in my opinion it currently isn't.

*When I started this job I bought my first smartphone and now I am fully apped up. I was fine with having a dumb old button phone except it was no good, I actually couldn't hear people who called me. I am certainly enjoying having a decent camera in my pocket at all times.

A StreetView walk around Cooee, in ten parts

On a slow day at work, I got onto Google StreetView for a look around Cooee.
It must have been an outlying village at one time but is now an outer suburb of Burnie.
I grew up in Burnie and went to high school in Cooee. I walked up and down
the highway between the two countless times. It's very pretty in a way
that really didn't impress me at the time, I don't think.

St David's Anglican church, Poke St.
Dad usually went to church at St George's in Burnie
but sometimes came out here.
Looks like it's for sale now.

Was this once Ted Eustace (Ted Useless) Motors? It looks haunted.
It seems amazing to me now, how much we took the
ever-present backdrop of the sea for granted. 

Cooee Railway Station? Or just a siding?

Above and below: site of the Cooee Saleyards

Above and below: Cooee Saleyards 1953, from Tas Archives.
I came here once with my mate Macca and his father.
I don't think I'd ever seen livestock close up, and was quite alarmed
at the way the cows just wandered around casually shitting everywhere.
Dogs are more embarrassed and apologetic. 

This was a watershed in Cooee development, a 2-storey servo!
As I recall it was the project of Burnie's only millionaire, Lloyd Bonney.
Now looks like it's a medical centre or something.

Cooee Point looking over to Table Cape.
My high school friend Daffy lived in this street, I can't place his house now.
Between his back fence and the rocks ran the railway line.
He had an air rifle and it was my first firearm experience, shooting cans.

A house in Saundridge Rd, near the high school.
This was my route walking and sometime riding to school,
although we were probably dropped off by Dad more often.

Rev's shop across the road from Burnie High.
Sold chips to generations of spotty teenagers.
According to Jacki, Mr Rev applied the cooking oil to his hair.
Any suggestions what the ghost sign says?

I used to be in the Burnie Municipal Band
and we had a fundraising dance here one year.
All I remember is my stint taking money on the door
while studying for a 20th Century History exam.

The former Les Clark Oval. Our school athletics carnivals were here,
and this is where I did Little Athletics. I remember an epic high jump head-to-head
that went on and on as it got darker and darker until someone missed their jump,
probably me. The grandstand is now demolished and half of the oval
sealed for the car park, other half now a bowls club.
I only discovered this today.

Cars spotted around town

An assortment 

The Dorney House

Yesterday was the 2nd day of Open House Hobart, when a wide range of government and commercial buildings and private homes are open for inspection. We chose the Dorney house, which sits all alone in the bush on Porters Hill. Interior photos from its heyday can be seen here.

The site was chosen for a concrete defensive fort in 1910. The house (and its two predecessors which both were lost to bushfires) was built on top of the obsolete fort. This third house dates to 1979. Esmond Dorney was an eminent architect, and he built the house for his own family. His son Paddy, also an architect, was there yesterday speaking about the house and answering questions.

Paddy said that the original fort had 6" guns, while the Dreadnought-class battleships which were the norm in all major navies by the time the fort was completed had 9" or 10" guns. One of those ships could moor out of range of the fort and bombard Hobart in perfect safety; so the fort was obsolete from the outset.

The river view sweeps from Bruny Island all the way around to the city of Hobart, about 200°, then across mostly vacant bush from there back around to Bruny.

That's Michael 3rd from right

Photo: Campbell Ship, borrowed from here

Letter to Ibey

In April 1974 I had recently started primary school. About five weeks had passed since my 6th birthday and I wrote this letter to my grandmother Ibey, Dad's mother. She lived in Launceston, 2 hours drive away, but was visiting her other grandchildren in Sydney.

The spelling is terrible but in quite an interesting way. How was I hearing the word "hope" that I thought it might have a w in it? Note that after writing "preznts" I went back and added the e that was obviously needed between t and s. Were my other presents "vere niys"? I really don't recall now. 

I still stand by "Fised" as the name for that subject; I remember fairly clearly learning that it actually was nothing to do with soft drinks. 

Thank you Ibey, for keeping my letter for the rest of your life. 

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