Since the last blog we’ve been to Sydney and had a week of dogsitting and wonderful beaches, north of Sydney in Avoca.  (Big thank you to Ian, Charity, Lily and Nate for the use of your house, and to Tiny the enormous great dane for keeping us company).  We’ve also had an early birthday party in Sydney for me,( another big thank you to Rob and Heather for laying it on and putting us up for several days) and went to the surf championships on Manly beach.   Now we’re back in Melbourne with Ben and Jen, have done movies in the park, Shakespeare in the park, and plenty more running, cycling and swimming, and  I am doing my little volunteer job for Arthritis Victoria a couple of times a week.

 

We are still trying to understand the indigenous race relations situation a bit better, it is constantly in the news with the government seeming to bend over backwards to improve the lot of indigenous people.  I had an interesting day at one of the Melbourne museums yesterday and had a long chat with a very nice young aboriginal lady.  She didn’t have any answers either, but she said 2 things that surprised me.  One was that although she went to school in a Melbourne suburb, she feels like a foreigner in Melbourne.  The other was that her grandma did not know what a house was when she first saw one.  That made me think.  We agreed to meet again next week.