Z is for Zanzibar

Zanzibar! Tropical island just off the African coast and these days part of the Republic of Tanzania. It is also known as the Spice Island and there are fragrant reminders of this at every turn.

This year I am not only grateful for having had the opportunity to visit this wonderful place but also for  who it reminded me of.............David Livingstone.

I don't think I had thought of Livingstone since primary school and then only in the phrase "Dr Livingstone I presume?" I certainly couldn't have told you why he was famous.

He was of course an explorer. Livingstone was one of the first Westerners to make a transcontinental journey across Africa between 1854 and 1856.

The qualities and approaches which gave Livingstone an advantage as an explorer over his predecessors were that he usually travelled lightly, and he had an ability to reassure chiefs that he was not a threat.

Other expeditions had dozens of soldiers armed with rifles and scores of hired porters carrying supplies, and were seen as military incursions or were mistaken for slave-raiding parties.

Livingstone on the other hand, travelled, on most of his journeys, with a few servants and porters, bartering for supplies along the way, with a couple of guns for protection. He preached a Christian message but did not force it on unwilling ears; he understood the ways of local chiefs and successfully negotiated passage through their territory.

Livingstone was not only an explorer however but a proponent of trade and Christian missions to be established in central Africa. His motto, inscribed in the base of the statue to him at Victoria Falls, was "Christianity, Commerce and Civilization".

Believing he had a spiritual calling for exploration rather than mission work, and encouraged by the response in Britain to his discoveries and support for future expeditions, in 1857 he resigned from the London Missionary Society after they demanded that he do more evangelizing and less exploring.

The British government agreed to fund Livingstone and he returned to Africa to examine the natural resources of southeastern Africa and open up the River Zambezi. Unfortunately it turned out to be completely impassable to boats and he eventually returned home in 1864 after the government ordered the recall of the expedition because of its increasing costs and failure to find a navigable route to the interior. The Zambezi Expedition was castigated as a failure in many newspapers of the time, and Livingstone experienced great difficulty in raising funds further to explore Africa.

In January 1866, Livingstone  however returned to Africa, this time to Zanzibar to prepare his expedition in search of the source of the River Nile. Zanzibar at that time housed the central slave market in which African men, women and children were sold to work in the "civilized" world.

Appalled by what he saw he wrote in a letter to the editor of the New York Herald

"And if my disclosures regarding the terrible slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together."

David Livingstone died in Chief Chitambo's village at Ilala southeast of Lake Bangweulu in western Tanzania on1 May 1873 from malaria and internal bleeding caused by dysentry.

Britain wanted the body to give it a proper ceremony, but the tribe would not give his body to them. Finally they relented, but cut the heart out and put a note on the body that said, "You can have his body, but his heart belongs in Africa!"

 Livingstone's heart was buried under a Mvula tree near the spot where he died. His body together with his journal was carried over a thousand miles by his loyal attendants and was returned to Britain for burial. His remains were interred at Westminster Abbey.

Livingstone's legacy is to Africa and to the world.

 Memorial to the Slave Trade - Anglican Christ's Cathedral Zanzibar which is built over the site of the former slave market

He inspired the abolitionists of the slave trade, as welll as explorers and missionaries.

He opened up Central Africa to missionaries who followed and who initiated education and health care for Africans, and trade by the African Lakes Company.  He was held in esteem by many African chiefs and local people and his name facilitated relations between them and the British.

Partly as a result, within fifty years of his death, colonial rule was established in Africa and white settlement was encouraged to extend further into the interior.

On the other hand, within a further fifty years after that, his legacy of education paradoxically helped end the colonial era in Africa without excessive bloodshed.

Africans educated in mission schools founded by people inspired by Livingstone were at the forefront of national independence movements in central, eastern and southern Africa.

In addition, Livingstone was part of an evangelical and nonconformist movement in Britain which during the 19th century changed the national mindset from the notion of a divine right to rule 'lesser races', to ethical ideas in foreign policy which, with other factors, contributed to the end of the British Empire.


The David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre, Berkshire celebrates his life and is based on the very house in which he was born and raised, and set on the site of the mill in which he started his working life.

Despite the misgivings of the time David Livingstone has gone down in the annals of history as one of the greatest missionaries who ever lived.

As the words of "O Holy Night" remind us about Jesus

"Truely he taught us
To love one another,
His law is love
And His gospel is peace.
Chains shall he break

For the slave is our brother

And in His name

All oppression shall cease."

 His complete commitment to Christ is evident in an entry to his journal:

 "I place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of Christ. If anything will advance the interests of the kingdom, it shall be given away or kept, only as by giving or keeping it I shall promote the glory of Him to whom I owe all my hopes in time and eternity."

Y is for yawning

............because yawning is still a wonderful mystery in many ways and I'm grateful for that.

We know a yawn is a semi-automatic reflex that originates in the brain stem in response to a lower level of oxygen in the brain. Yawning does not necessarily indicate fatigue, although people do tend to yawn when they're sleepy.


Yawning is an action that occurs throughout the animal kingdom. Several different brain chemicals seem to be involved in yawning, but the mechanisms are still not understood.

For example, yawning seems to be contagious. Why is that? We simply don't know.

Here are a few things that are known about yawns:

• The average duration of a yawn is about 6 seconds.
• In humans, the earliest occurrence of a yawn happens at about 11 weeks after conception - (yes that's BEFORE the baby is born)
• Yawns become contagious to people between the first and second years of life.

 

So if you are over 2, you will probably find yourself yawning as you watch these videos!

 

 

 

 

X is for Xmas Carols

Yes, at this time of year we can become a little jaded about Christmas carols as we are stalked by them just about  everywhere we go! Nonetheless they are one of the great traditions of Christmas and I am grateful for carols that remind us of what Christmas is all about.
The word carol actually means dance or a song of praise and joy!Carols used to be written and sung during all four seasons, but only the tradition of singing them at Christmas has really survived.

 The first recorded Christmas carol is from AD 129, a Roman Bishop said that a song called 'Angel's Hymn' should be sung at a Christmas service in Rome. Another famous early Christmas Hymn was written, in 760AD, by Comas of Jerusalem for the Greek Orthodox Church. Soon after this, many composers all over Europe started to write carols. However, not many people liked them as they were all written and sung in Latin, a language that most people couldn't understand.

This was changed by St. Francis of Assisi when, in 1223, he started the public performance of nativity plays. The people in the plays sang songs or 'canticles' that told the story during the plays. Sometimes, the choruses of these new carols were in Latin; but normally they were all in a language that the people watching could understand and join in! The new carols spread to France, Spain, Germany and other European countries.

The earliest carol, like this, was written in 1410. Sadly only a very small fragment of it still exists. The carol was about Mary and Jesus meeting different people in Bethlehem. Most Carols from this time and the Elizabethan period are untrue stories, very loosely based on the Christmas story, about the holy family and were seen as entertaining rather than religious songs and they were usually sung in homes rather than in churches.

When Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans came to power in England in 1647, the celebration of Christmas and singing carols was stopped. However, the carols survived as people still sang them in secret. Carols remained mainly unsung until Victorian times, when two men called William Sandys and Davis Gilbert collected lots of old Christmas music from villages in England.

Before carol singing in public became popular, there were sometimes official carol singers called 'Waits'. These were bands of people led by important local leaders (such as council leaders) who had the only power in the towns and villages to take money from the public. They were called 'Waits' because they only sang on Christmas Eve (This was sometimes known as 'watchnight' or 'waitnight' because of the shepherds were watching their sheep when the angels appeared to them.), when the Christmas celebrations began.

Also, at this time, many orchestras and choirs were being set up in the cities of England and people wanted Christmas songs to sing, so carols once again became popular. Many new carols were also written .

New carols services were created and became popular, as did the custom of singing carols in the streets. Perhaps the most famous carol service, is the service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College in Cambridge, UK. This service takes place on Christmas Eve and is broadcast live on BBC Radio (and all over the world). The Service was first performed in 1918 as a way of the college celebrating the end of the First World War. It is always started with a single choir boy singing a solo of the first verse of the carol 'Once in Royal David's City'. http://tistheseasonto.be/carols/once-in-royal-davids-city.html

 A service of Nine Lessons and Carols, has nine bible readings (or lessons) that tell the Christmas story with one or two carols between each lesson.

As for we Aussies we have our own carols that celebrate a hot Christmas celebrated in city and country alike. Here are a couple of my favourites.

W is for waste management

If you have someone or something that disposes of all your waste so that you do not have to burn or bury it.............be grateful. I know I am!

V is for vacuum cleaners

Yes the not so humble vacuum cleaner is my pick for the letter V.

I am very grateful that I own a machine that collects dust in such an efficient manner.

Vacuum cleaners have been around for just over 100 years and have come a long way since this early model.

Nowadays it's more or less child's play.

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U is for ukulele

That's right folks........... I play the ukulele (a little) ............I only started this year.

 Today the ukulele is having a resurgence.

It's cross-generational.  

It's important.

 Don't believe it? Do a quick search on YouTube.

There's a lot happening with this four-string, two octave instrument.

 

I'm grateful for the ukulele because it's  

• cheap (I paid $30 for mine)
• fairly simple to learn (also on you tube)
•  a new challenge and
• even the mention of it tends to make people smile (if not simply LOL).

I simply feel happy when I play or hear the ukulele. If it has that effect on you........why not try it yourself?

T is for texting



I think texting is possibly the greatest step forward in communication since the telephone was invented in 1876 and before that, language itself.

With friends and family all over the world, face to face communication is just not possible most of the time. Skype and live messaging are good, but require the internet.

Texting on a mobile phone can be done basically anywhere, and any time these days (although I do draw the line at texting someone who is in the same building as you!)

Even the shortest text to someone says "I'm thinking of you." Making a phone call isn't always simple or easy. Texting is.

Perhaps I'm easily pleased but I'm grateful every time friends and family text me (especially my big sister who has taken to texting an abbreviated form of "good morning" to me in a variety of languages, just to keep me on my toes!).

I still like to spell words out and use punctuation - I'm old school- but I don't mind if others are not.

In fact, here's a list you can text me any time.

 <3                    “sideways heart” (love, friendship)
.02                     my (or your) two cents worth
2EZ                    too easy
2G2BT               too good to be true
^5                       high-five
*s*                     meaning “smile”
*w*                    meaning “wink”

S is for sleep



Life in the middle ages is often associated with an inability to sleep. I am grateful these days for knowing I have had a stint of three or four hours of slumbering bliss as I peer at the clock radio in the early hours of the morning.

I am also grateful for happy dreams and perhaps even more grateful when I wake up from nightmares.

Sleep is essential to good physical and mental health and I read that adults still need 7-9 hours each night.

I hope you enjoy these quotes about sleep.

Sleeping is no mean art:  for its sake one must stay awake all day.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche



Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
~William Shakespeare, Macbeth




People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one.  ~Leo J. Burke


Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.  ~Fran Lebowitz



A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book.  ~Irish Proverb


And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
~D.H. Lawrence




Insomnia is a gross feeder.  It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking.  ~Clifton Fadiman





If people were meant to pop out of bed, we'd all sleep in toasters.  ~Author unknown, attributed to Jim Davis



Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.  ~Thomas Dekker


People who snore always fall asleep first.  ~Author Unknown


The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to.  ~F. Scott Fitzgerald


O bed! O bed! delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head.
~Thomas Hood, Miss Kilmansegg - Her Dream


There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock.  ~Author Unknown


It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.  ~John Steinbeck


Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up.  ~Author Unknown




All men whilst they are awake are in one common world:  but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.  ~Plutarch




The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night's sleep.  ~E. Joseph Cossman


Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge




I'm not asleep... but that doesn't mean I'm awake.  ~Author Unknown



The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more.  ~Wilson Mizener

 

R is for radio

R is for radio. I would much rather (if I ever had to choose) live without TV than without radio.

In the middle of the night if I am awake it's the radio that keeps me company. On a plane I can nod off listening to music while movies and TV keep me awake.

Despite the multiple free TV channels I can access now, there is simply nothing to watch most nights. Not so for the radio. The majority of stations do not broadcast repeats of their programs, instead offering a “listen-again” feature accessible online. Many stations also make their programmes available as free downloads in the form of podcasts so you can listen when it suits you.

Radio caters to a wide variety of tastes, from literature to gardening and to all genres of music.  It is informative, intelligent and highly entertaining - an art form in itself.

I can listen to a local, national or international channel depending on the time of day and my mood and interests.

In times of emergency, such as during the flood in Brisbane at the start of the year, the TV screen was replaying dreadful images again and again while the  radio was providing essential information to those affected.

T.V. is also more subject to developing technology than radio. Now there's high-definition and bluray and an even more expensive generation of T.V. viewing is up for grabs: 3D.

In order to keep up with these advances, viewers are forced to purchase new equipment. Not so with radio.

I am grateful for radio. It provides me with all the information I need
http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/
and a soundtrack to my life.
http://www.mygoldmusic.co.uk/
Long may it prosper.

Q is for quirky

It would be terrible if we were all the same!
I am grateful we're not.

P is for Pockets

Got to be grateful for pockets. Especially in winter!

O is for Oprah

Ok. I hear the collective groan. BUT............  I believe Oprah has done many generous and positive things with her wealth and position of influence.

Did you know............

The business press measures Oprah's wealth in numerous superlatives: the highest-paid performer on television, the richest self-made woman in America, and the richest African-American of the 20th century.

More difficult to calculate is her profound influence over the way people around the world read, eat, exercise, feel and think about themselves and the world around them. She appears on every list of the world's leading opinion-makers, and has been rightly called "the most powerful woman in the world."

Oprah Winfrey's business interests have extended well beyond her own production company. She is one of the partners in Oxygen Media, Inc., a cable channel and interactive network presenting programming designed primarily for women.

With her success, she has also become one of the world's most generous philanthropists. In 2000, Oprah's Angel Network began presenting a $100,000 "Use Your Life Award" to people who are using their own lives to improve the lives of others.

 Over the years, she has also used her program to promote the many philanthropic ventures she supports. After filming a Christmas program in South Africa, she established the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, near Johannesburg.

Her legendary generosity has extended not only to her favorite charities, but to her loyal viewers. She celebrated the beginning of her 20th season on national television by giving every member of the studio audience a brand new Pontiac!

Born to an unwed teenage mother, Oprah Winfrey spent her first years on her grandmother's farm in Mississippi, while her mother looked for work in the North. Life on the farm was primitive, but her grandmother taught her to read at an early age, and at age three Oprah was reciting poems and Bible verses in local churches. Despite the hardships of her physical environment, she enjoyed the loving support of her grandmother and the church community.

Since her book club debuted in 1996,  Oprah — who personally chooses which books to endorse and does not financially benefit — has invited 66 titles into her club. Introducing the first book, The Deep End of the Ocean by first-time novelist Jacquelyn Mitchard, Winfrey told her audience, "When I was growing up, books were my friends. When I didn't have friends, I had books. And one of the greatest pleasures I have right now in life is to be reading a really good book and to know I have a really, really good book after that book to read."

I am grateful for Oprah and all the people like her.

N is for No Frills and Natural

Yes .......... it is an apt description of moi, but, it's not what I mean.






If you live in Australia you'll recognise the No Frills brand as quality supermarket products with bland packaging. Apparently this was started by Franklins back in 1978 with just three products- peanut butter, honey and potato chips.

Now of course there are no frills everything- including airlines- and I am not so sure about that!

But no frills groceries means you can save a lot of money on your weekly shopping bill by not being swayed by packaging or shelf positioning. I am ALWAYS grateful for a bargain.

I am also very grateful to have got to a stage in life where I can disregard the claims made by companies that produce cleaning products. What a lot of money and damage to the environment we can save by simply cleaning with the products our grandmothers used!

I am almost fanatical now about white vinegar. There isn't much that this product doesn't clean as well as, or better than, the alternatives I've found.

Have a look at this website for some (well a 1001 actually) great ideas
http://www.vinegartips.com/Scripts/


Got to be grateful for vinegar!

I have a book that was passed down to me from a great, great Aunt. It is entitled Everything a Lady Should Know. It doesn't have a publication date but I assume around 1900 because, although having a Hunter Street Sydney bookseller's label, it talks of dissolving mixtures "over the fire".

It has recipes and cures for just about everything the 21st woman needs to know.
Here is the entry on the uses of the humble lemon.

 What a lemon will do

Lemonade made from the juice of the lemon is one of the best and safest drinks for any person whether in health or not. It is suitable for all stomach diseases, excellent in sickness, in cases of jaundice, liver complaint, inflammation of bowels and fevers. It is a specific against worms and skin complaints. The pippin (seed) crushed may be used sugar and water and taken as a drink. Lemon juice not only cures disease, but prevents it. Sailors make daily use of it for this purpose. We advise everyone to rub their gums with lemon juice to keep them in a healthy condition. The hands and nails are also kept clean, white, soft and supple by  the daily use of lemon instead of soap.It also prevents chilblains. Lemon is used in intermittent fevers, mixed with strong, hot, black coffee without sugar. Neuralgia (nerve pain), it is said, may be cured by rubbing the part effected with a cut lemon. It is valuable also to cure warts. It will remove dandruff by rubbing the roots of the hair with it. It will alleviate, and finally cure coughs, colds if taken hot on going to bed at night. Its uses are manifold and the more we employ it internally the better we shall feel ourselves.

M is for Middle Age

Yes M is for middle age.
It's my birthday today and I want to celebrate all that it has taken me all these years to become, and to gain.

It is in my middle age that I feel I have the freedom to be fully me.



I think that in middle age you are not constrained by as many things and people as you are when you are younger.

There is more choice about what to do with your time and resources (and greater wisdom than when this last happened between the ages of 18-25 perhaps!)

I want to live the rest of my life making the best use of the knowledge and skills and resources I have acquired and in loving well all the people around me.

Need some inspiration..???

and could we ever forget the 70's anthem by Australian Helen Reddy.....

 

L is for a (good) laugh

Got to be grateful for anything that gives you a laugh I say!

Enjoyed the wedding very much, but this also brings a smile.

and isn't this the truth about flying these days

K is for Kathleen Noonan

Kathleen Noonan is a journalist and social commentator. She writes a weekly column The Last Word in the Brisbane Courier Mail on Saturdays. Love it, love it, love it. I am grateful for her insight, her heart and her ability to give voice and form to the important things in life.

If you haven't discovered her writing yet, try this one for starters

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/busy-hands-heal-the-soul/story-e6frerh6-1225966306855

This leads beautifully into to another "K thing" I am grateful for............knitting.

Making things by hand in general is so good for the soul and I am so grateful to my mum and dad who taught me so patiently to do so many creative things.

My knitting focus last year was tea cosies like these ( a lost art)

Some people know how to use them

and others have a long way to go!!

This year I'm into scarves

(I am also grateful to those who so graciously accept my creative whims as gifts!)

J is for Jewellery

Wow! In my lifetime jewellery has changed from a few precious pieces to beads, bangles and bling and I am grateful because I LOVE to accessorise!

While I would never part with the couple of family pieces of jewellery I have and love, for day to day, cheer yourself and the outfit up, you can't beat the fake stuff.



And if it gets a bit tired looking, here's how to clean it up at home.

I is for Immunisation

There are so many things we can take for granted having been born into the developed world in the middle of the 20th century.

I had to think about the letter "i" but immunisation has, of course, saved me from suffering (or indeed dying from) some of the most terrible diseases such as polio.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) by the 2020s:

• child deaths from infectious diseases are expected to be at an all-time low;
• polio should be eradicated, and measles eliminated in all countries;

World wide, polio cases have decreased by over 99% since 1988 to just over 1600 in 2009.

Only four countries, Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan, have never interrupted circulation of the wild polio virus, although transmission is now limited to small areas within these countries. A further 19 countries, previously polio-free, reported cases and outbreaks due to imported wild polio virus in 2009.
 

---

Any one in the "middle ages" will know the songs of Joni Mitchell.

You may not know however, that when she was 9, she contracted polio. Later she recalls:

"...the 80s were a rough decade for me and on top of it I was diagnosed as having post-polio syndrome which they said was inevitable for I'm a polio survivor, that forty years after you had the disease, which is a disease of the nervous system, the wires that animate certain muscles are taken out by the disease, and the body in its ingenious way, the filaments of the adjacent muscles send out branches and try to animate that muscle.

 It's kind of like the EverReady bunny, the muscles all around the muscles that are gone begin to go also because they've been trying to drive this muscle for so long. That's the nature of what was happening so I had it mostly in my back, so you don't see it as much as you would in a withered leg or an arm. But the weight of the guitar became unbearable. Also, acoustic guitar requires that you extend your shoulder out in an abnormal way and coincidentally some of the damage to my back in combination with that position was very painful.

So being born just that few years later than Joni, when polio immunisation was readily available in this country, is something to be extremely grateful for.
 A perhaps little known Australian woman, Elizabeth Kenny (1880-1952) also had a big part to play in assisting the recovery of polio sufferers.

H is for Hairdressers

Where would we be without hairdressers!
I went to the hairdresser today.
Somehow, when my hair is good, the whole world seems brighter.

I am very grateful for all my 'good hair' days and so very grateful to my hairdresser Xin and for all those people who trained for years and stand on their feet all day to help us look our best.

Hairdressing is a difficult job. So many things can go wrong. Have a look at this............

One of my gorgeous nieces, Toni, is a hairdresser.
This is Toni and Pete on their wedding day. (The bride arrived on a motorbike- what a woman!)

And here they are with Jessica (16), Destiny (4) and Eden (6 months). Aren't they something? I am so grateful for all my wonderful family.

G is for Growing

....or gardening, or garden
What a joy it is to have a garden and to watch and water and nuture the growth of flowers and trees fruits, herbs and vegetables.

I am very grateful for this everyday pleasure, everyday.

Currently in my "veggie patch in a bathtub" (yes, it's a real bathtub) I am growing tomatoes, baby capsicums, baby beets, parsley, mint, basil and rocket.

Whether it's in a paddock, a garden bed or a pot, the miracle of growth never ceases to amaze

These are photos from the Ekka (annual Brisbane Agricultural Exhibition) something I am grateful hasn't lost its charm and is still popular in the 21st centuty

F is for Fish

I am very, very grateful for my fantastic family, friends and followers and I hope I have honoured them elsewhere on this blog so I am going with F for fish.

Fish are fascinating.  For instance, did you know that............

it is estimated that there are more species of fish than all the species of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals put together.


there are over 25,000 identified species of fish on the earth.

starfish have no brains.

it is estimated that there may still be over 15,000 fish species that have not yet been identified.

40% of all fish species inhabit fresh water, yet less than .01% of the earth’s water is fresh water.

This map (below) shows the coral reefs of the world. I am privileged to live in a part of the world where it is really easy to access the ocean and see coral reefs and tropical fish in a pristine environment.

I think being in the ocean is the closest we can get to seeing how the world was when it was created. This is an incredible experience that I am really, really grateful for.

When I was younger and fitter I learnt to scuba dive.

These days I snorkel. In shallow reefs you see just as much. If you have never seen the Great Barrier Reef up close I hope you get the opportunity to do so one day.

The fish are AMAZING!

This is me (second from left) getting ready to snorkel off Port Douglas in 2009.

and here are some fishy photos I took that day.