Saturday, 12th March 2011 – a lethargic day at home!

Saturday, 12^th March 2011  –  a lethargic day at home!

It was a very warm and humid March day – and this scribe didn’t get out into the garden as planned – but instead worked  on the family history research.  Also went for a walk again, late afternoon – realised along the way that I should have gone this morning, when a bit cooler, as by the time I returned home, was feeling the opposite of what I should have been. Later, cooked a meal for Susie, who had been working all day ay Big W [despite still suffering from a persistent cough]  – although I think she was happy to return to a cooked meal, I actually didn’t feel like eating & didn’t really enjoy it tonight!

A couple of interesting horse racers in Melbourne today – in the Newmarket Handicap over 1200 metres, we saw short priced favourite ‘Black Caviar’ streak away from the field in the final straight  – what a horse, just 10 starts, for 10 wins, first horse out here to win it’s first 10 races in a row. The crowd burst into applause over that last 200 metres, even before the horse took the lead, they could see what was coming – don’t like this overused word – but simply ‘awesome’!!!  Before today, Black Caviar’s nine starts – 3 wins over 1000 metres, 6 wins over 1200 metres –  a brilliant mare, had to shoulder a big weight today, but possibly aided by the small field  of 11 starters. Ridden by Luke Nolen, trained by Peter Moody.   Meanwhile, another star performer today was former Melbourne Cup winner, ‘Shocking’  – loves Flemington, and proved it again today, in the 2,000 metre Australian Cup – ridden by Corey Brown, trained by Mark Kavanagh.

The news from Japan continues to depress and horrify. With more than half the population of a small port town is unaccounted for [up to 10,000 people] following the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan and has subsequently caused a nuclear emergency which over the next few days would become t5he focus of much of the media attention, even over the massive rescue and recovery effort that was underway.  As I watched various reports of the disaster throughout the day, I continue to be shocked at the massive force of the tsunami that has obviously caused the bulk of the destruction and loss of life. Japan is well used to earthquakes, and of all countries, their buildings in general have been constructed to counter the average earthquake. So in Tokyo for eg, there did not seem to be anywhere like the building damage that we saw in Christchurch, NZ, just recently. Mind you, I think the epi-centre of the earthquake in Japan was a few hundred kilometres away from Tokyo, but the strength of the quake was such, that buildings swayed and a certain degree of damage was caused to infrastructure throughout the country. But, it seems, the real damage, as mentioned, came from the tsunami. Over the weekend, a friend would post the following quote on Face Book –  ‘The New York Times’ Kenneth Chang explains that last week’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan has actually altered the earth’s coastlines and changed “the balance of the planet,” in addition to leaving more than 10,000 people dead….’

Fig. 1. A view of tsunami damage from the east of Aonae, a small town on the island of Okushiri, which is in the Sea of Japan, east of Hokkaido. (Courtesy of Y. Tsuji.)

Cricket scores from today’s one World Cup game saw:  Match 29: South Africa 7 for 300 defeated India 296 [Group B, at Nagpur],

As almost comes to be expected on a Saturday night,  despite a quite early night, my sleep was restless, and constantly broken, waking from a series of dreams  –  at one stage, I was running [literally] late for my daughter’s wedding, and could do nothing to change that situation –  a common theme of my dreams, running late, not quite achieving what I set out to do, just missing out on some event or occurrence  –  as suggested previously in these pages, no doubt some dream expert out there could quickly place a range of interpretations  on that ‘theme’ of my dreams. Many years ago, the theme concentrating on ‘falling experiences’  – I seem to have gone beyond that, and now things are related to this aspect of always ‘chasing’ time, someone, something!!!   Such is life!!