Welcome to my lockdown. How’s yours going?
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With keeping warm a priority, I’m regularly making pots of soup, reading more, contemplating lockdowns – and I probably have a vitamin D deficiency!
Soup
The soup is easy. We have three favourites – a creamy pumpkin (no other vegies to dilute the flavour, just pumpkin). Lamb shanks with every vegie I can get my hands on – with a little honey and chili to enhance the flavour. And there is a concoction we call ‘white soup’ with potato, bacon, onion, sweet corn. I’ve been making this for 50 years but I’ve never had a recipe. I pinched it from a dinner party we attended; made it for the first time when my memory was fresh - and it has remained a family favourite.
Have you got one you’d like to share?
Third Son just arrived at the front gate to collect some of the lamb shank variety. Lovely to see him but I do miss my hugs!
Reading
Now, the books I’ve been reading have been annoying me somewhat. Without exception, all I’ve read lately, from Australian publishers, have multiple errors.
Mind you, book publishers have had a fair degree of difficulty. In 2011, Nick Sherry (Minister for Small Business at the time) claimed that – within five years – by 2016 – there would be no bookshops in Australia.
Although lockdowns have had an adverse effect on bookstores (because books aren’t considered ‘essential’) the most recent figures I can find indicate that there are approximately 900 real bookshops in Australia.
For publishers, the present environment isn’t the future they were told to expect. Readers are still reading and many of them continue to enjoy books rather than screens. In addition, books take months to publish; they are rarely time critical. Plus there are editors and editorial assistants etc. So why am I reading silly sentences like this:
‘There was a distant whump in the distance’ – describing the first bomb to be dropped on London – or ‘There was a distant explosion nearby’. (Sorry? What?)
Di Morrissey, who is apparently Australia’s favourite storyteller, was obviously in a hurry to finish The Road Back. The main protagonist, on a property near Deniliquin, said ‘Let’s go down to Sydney.’ (Travelling north-east might be quicker).
Madeline Martin, in a book about London bookshops, had a character catching ‘the last tube to Canterbury’. (Well! you could I suppose but there’d be a long walk after the last underground station – about 40 miles.) There are many more; I won’t bore you with them all.
But, do you remember, when we were discussing that beautiful book about Ellis Rowan? In which they told us that Ellis’ grandparents lived on the Goulburn River, 80 km west of Melbourne? That was a winner!
I’m not blaming the authors. It’s likely that when you’ve written 9000 words, your concentration slips. However, their editors are asleep at the wheel and it’s extremely annoying. My current book is a biography and I note with relief that it has been published in the UK. In 300 pages so far, nothing has jumped out to spoil my enjoyment.
Contemplating lockdowns and our Constitution.
I’ve always thought of the Constitution (when I’ve thought about it at all!) – as a framework on which our laws sit. It can’t be changed by an Act of Parliament; it can only be changed when we say so.
Constitutional lawyers would have a field day with me – because what do I know? I’m just your average grandmother! However, I do know that the document guarantees us freedom of movement because I’ve read it, from time to time. Freedom of movement between the states, freedom to come and go from our country. I don’t remember it mentioning freedom to leave your home – maybe that was a given. So, how come it has been consistently disregarded for the last 18 months? Only Clive Palmer – of all people – has tried to do something about it; possibly not for ‘the good of the country’, more likely to do with his bank balance.
Do you remember, about five years ago, our politicians found an opportunity to remove opposition members from parliament? Some of them were unconstitutional because of overseas connections? We heard about the Constitution – over and over. It seemed to matter then.
Yes! I know, as you do, that there were reasons for closing our borders – to keep us safe. Closing our national border was, perhaps a necessary step. But there have been times when state borders have closed, when you have to wonder; perhaps it was the easiest step to take. And, what about refusing entry to Queensland, to fully vaccinated people, to say ‘farewell’ to dying parents?
Have a look at these numbers, which are as accurate as I could make them, at deadline. It is my attempt to offer some perspective which, I feel, is lacking in our daily reports.
Overseas, since the start of the pandemic, the average death rate is currently 2000 per million.
On Australian roads, each year, the death rate is 40 per million.
In 2019, in Australia, the influenza-related death rate was 32 per million
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, (18 months) we have lost 36.64 people per million.
This year, the COVID-19 death rate is .32 per million. (Point 32.)
Please note: I found it difficult to double check the overseas number because the population figures were just too big for a small brain.
From The Town Square
Last week, I mentioned our ‘first local orchard and vineyard’ – the main part of which was bordered by Mason St, Wyndham St, The Boulevard and Balaclava Rd. Sue Marmo tells me that she ‘remembers this area as Chinese market gardens and the source of many boxes of fresh vegetables delivered to the kitchens of Shepparton in the late 1930s and through the 1940s.’ She believes the area was known as Fairley’s Estate after it was subdivided for housing.
My information came from Elsie Brady’s book ‘They left their footsteps’ – so, it seems as if the orchard and vineyard came first, followed by the market gardens, followed by the estate. Thanks Sue, for passing this on.
A reminder that we have just one bookshop in Shepparton. Collins Books is locally owned and through the lockdowns has offered contactless click and collect. Hopefully, they’ll be open again soon and able to offer their first class in-store service.
Not too long ago, Shepparton had a Town Crier. I can’t find an exact date but some of you may remember. His name was Soapy Tompkins. Wouldn’t it be fun to have one working again in the CBD, say around Christmas? If anyone on council is interested, I have a plan that would cost the city absolutely nothing.
There are many people in our region doing it tough right now but may it be easy – soon, my friends.
- Marnie
Email: towntalk@sheppnews.com.au
Letter: Town Talk. Shepparton News. P.O. Box 204. Shepparton 3631.
Phone: Send a text on 0418 962 507.