Me and my boy - 7 June 2009

Greetings !

Bron took this picture of me and Matt at Harrington today. Jen was playing at a friend and we went to Harrigan's Irish Pub for lunch - quite a good atmosphere and I enjoyed my Kilkenny on tap. You may remember that the Manning River has two outlets - the Northern outlet is at Harrington and the Southern is at Old Bar. The Southern one closes up from time to time and there is endless debate as to whether it should be opened up or left alone. The dairy farmers want to leave it to nature and the oyster farmers want it permanently open.

This weekend is a long weekend in Australia thanks to the Public Holiday for the Queen's Birthday tomorrow. I am surprised that the whole Commonwealth / Republic thing isn't more topical. In fact, when it comes to politics, I am getting quite disillusioned living in a country where the government doesn't " rule " and where the Opposition does just that - oppose practically everything that the party which is supposedly in power puts forward. Perhaps growing up with the National Party and then the ANC, I am just not used to what an Opposition is supposed to do. Anyway, it seems very ineffcient and unproductive, and the number of small battles that are fought seems ludicrous.

Still on politics, our 4th Year Medical students finished their Paediatric block and gave me a book called " In Our Time - the speeches that shaped the modern world ". It includes Nelson Mandela's opening statement for the Defence at the Rivonia Trial in Pretoria on 20 April 1964 and the speech at his Inauguration 30 years later. I wish I had read both of them more often and I will never stop hoping that South Africa will be the " rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world " which he ( on behalf of the ANC )proposed to build.

The students also made up a limerick for me -

There was a nice doctor called Dylan
His specialty was helping children
The students he taught
To treat children with thought
And hopefully never to kill them!

Well, I had to give them some kind of goal!

Later............

Dyl, Bron, Matt and Jen