Patriot Realm

“Look what happened last time I took a tablet.”

Those devastating words broke the heart of Trish Jackson, as her 94-year-old mother steadfastly refused to take medication in her nursing home. Now an artist, Jackson from Queensland, Australia is one of 3,000 global survivors of the drug thalidomide.

What can I say? A flippant email from Redhead resulted in a spike protein of love and caring and ended in hours of fun and laughter. 

All because she missed her " boy ".

Let me tell you the story.

“Those great times we once had before the "world went mad". I wonder if we'll ever see them again?” 

Oh yes, we’ll see them again, but it will take time, and will involve a degree of ruthless dealing with certain people responsible for the foul miasma of personal misery, economic hardship and irretrievable loss to many people as well as to the country, severe psychological damage to many, adults and children alike, that has enveloped the world and its people like a choking cloud.

The last holiday I had was before the world went mad. It was to the deep south of New Zealand to places like Queenstown, The Catlins and Bluff. 

The highlight was a day trip to Stewart Island  , right at the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand.  

The ONLY Australian manufacturer of frozen Australian grown vegetables (Simplot Australia) is not far from closing because a number of the other well-known Australian brands have moved their plants to New Zealand in order to capture the Chinese vegetable market where they market via New Zealand to Australian tables (without the food being labelled specifically as Chinese) and Simplot is finding it hard to compete.