Patriot Realm

Today we’ve got a curious tale to share... part sport, part history, and part heart. It begins, as so many good stories do, with a wartime memory.

My 92-year-old Mum still remembers the first time she tasted ice cream...  proper American ice cream... during World War II. The Yanks had arrived in droves, bringing chocolate, charm, jitterbug records, and a strange new summer game called softball. 

That’s where this story begins: in the swirl of war, sport, and shifting summer traditions. One side of the Tasman would fall in love with softball. The other already had a national romance... in whites, with an  Australian National hero..... Don Bradman. But Mum's brother, Uncle Pete,  fell in love with softball. 

From the Eureka Stockade to today’s silent struggle, Australians are waking up -  not to rebellion, but to restoration. 

There comes a time in every nation's life when the soft underbelly is laid bare, and that time is now. Australia is being gutted from the inside out. And we, the people, are standing in a fog of apathy, like possums caught in the headlights of our own destruction. Well, it’s time to snap out of it. Time to rise. Time to fight.

They ripped out our heart when they sold our land, our industries, and our children’s future.

They took our backbone when they told us to sit down, shut up, and trust the process. But something stirs now -   from country towns to crowded cities  -  the old spirit isn’t dead. It’s waking.

This isn’t about Left or Right. This is about Australia. A land worth defending. A people worth fighting for. And a heritage worth remembering. The fight begins...  not with bullets, but with truth, with courage, with the mongrel in us rising once more.

Today would have been my late sister-in-law’s birthday. This is my tribute to a woman I loved, and our family adored.

She came to New Zealand for love, and walked straight into a milk cart prank. But in the way she handled it - with grace, humour, and a winning way . She passed the only test that really matters in our family: could she laugh with us?

This story isn’t just about a joke. It’s about belonging.
And it's for her.

In a world increasingly anxious about saying the wrong thing, where humour is policed and offence is taken before intent is understood, I find myself thinking back to a simpler moment...  one that says more than it first appears.

It’s just a family story, really. A harmless prank involving a horse, a milk cart, and a wide-eyed English girl who thought she was becoming a milkmaid.

They say wisdom often arrives wearing old boots, sipping strong coffee, and wielding a spanner. Well, maybe they don't and I just made that up.

But my Uncle Pete was that kind of man.

A bewhiskered, big-hearted farmer who skydived despite chronic illness, helped us teenagers fix clapped-out cars, and somehow made life’s hardest truths sound like plain old common sense.

Today, of all days....his birthday...I remember a story he told that now rings louder than ever, in an age when governments dodge responsibility by hiring 'experts' and hiding behind consultants.

A lesson in responsibility from a man who never needed a whiteboard consultant.