Richard's Ramblings

You know those social media quizzes which show a photo of an item from the 1950s (or a bit later or earlier), and ask “‘Like’ if you remember what this is”?  One recently had a sort of small inverted tin just to the left of a clutch pedal. I’m sad to say that I recognised it straightaway as the foot-operated switch to dip your headlight main beam. I think the last car I had with that switch was a 1965 minivan. And it came to mind when the passenger side low beam bulb went on Leisa’s car while I was down last week. Our property is at the end of a 9km long winding (cue the Beatles)  unlit lane, so you need good lights on a car. With a dip bulb out, oncoming vehicles might think you’re a motorbike. But with high beam on, oncoming vehicles are dazzled. You see, car lights are not only to help you see the road but also to help other motorists see you. Straight after the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, Jesus tells his disciples (vv14 - 16) “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hil

A break from the parish pew sheet rambling. I have a slim Les Murray volume (The Daylight Moon), but I need to revisit it and acquire a complete works. https://hughosb.com/2019/06/18/they-pretend-not-to-notice/

“No trial has overtaken you except what is common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13)  The verse popped into my head this week while I was laid prostrate with manflu. You know, what a woman would call a common cold.  Our Cedar Creek property is surrounded by rainforest, so there’s always something flowering to trigger hay fever, and this week it progressed to a cold.  St Paul continues, “ … God is faithful; he will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear. But when you are tested he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”  My way out which God provided took the form of nurse Leisa, letting the chooks out in the morning before she left for work, so that I could stay in bed, and plying me with hot whisky, lemon and honey toddy (great manflu cure - should be available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme - ask me for the recipe)  in the evening. A surefire way of getting to sleep, even with a blocked nose. The hot toddy helps you breathe through your ears 🥃 👂 OK,

It’s no secret that I love baked beans. Along with some other favourite comestibles, I see their existence as proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy  😊   The most recent tins which I bought are “English Recipe”. I didn’t know that baked beans come in different recipes, I can’t say that they taste any different to any other baked beans, they’re just a normal baked beany taste. I guess that it’s a marketing ploy to evoke imagined Pommie nostalgia for Marmite and deep-fried Mars Bars. But the “Whingeing Pom”, if s/he ever existed, was a creature of the 1950s. Nowadays, we’re grateful Poms, enjoying this wonderful country which is our real home. The bible has four sorts of people who left one country or state of being to make their home somewhere else. The Israelites of the Exodus did a fair amount of whingeing. “We had plenty to eat in Egypt”, they whinged, clean forgetting that they had been slaves. While Ruth told Boaz that she would be not just his wife, but that “Your pe