Author Archives: browney

Lazy Summer Days

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Black Point, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia

The Christmas New Year period provides a time for relaxing and resetting. Work, or in my case my PhD, is the last thing on people’s minds and it’s usually hot!

It’s a time to go to the beach and we were very lucky this year to be invited by our daughter, her partner and our new grandson to spend New Year with them at my daughter’s partner’s family shack at Black Point on the Yorke Peninsula.

Black Point is about a two-hour drive from Adelaide if the traffic isn’t too bad. We were lucky and the traffic was light.

Although Yorke Peninsula is one of South Australia’s favourite summer holiday spots, we don’t visit often. So it was delightful to be invited.

As kids, my favourite person and I had trips to Yorke Peninsula and my favourite person had lived there for a short time when she was little – the joys of being a minister’s daughter.  In my case, my last visit was to James Well for a Partner Retreat which proved to be the catalyst for a move to the firm that sustained me for the remainder of my working life, although through the raging argument that ensued at the retreat I certainly couldn’t have foreseen it.

The drive out of Adelaide took us through North Adelaide and onto Port Wakefield Road. The terrain is so different from our usual drive to our holiday house on the Fleurieu Peninsula. It’s a straight drive just a couple of turns at the top of the peninsula and then we were there. It’s flat and dry, quintessential Australian countryside.

Port Wakefield

Following the rule of not driving for too long in any one stint, we stopped at Port Wakefield to stretch our legs. It’s a typical country town. It’s just the right distance from Adelaide to stop and refuel both yourself and the car. It’s the staging point for trips north or west in the state and the turnoff to Yorke Peninsula just out of the town can bottleneck but we weren’t held up at all.

Through Port Wakefield, we headed down the other side of Yorke Peninsula past Ardrossan and then onto Black Point, which for most of the year would be described as sleepy. At this time of the year it’s a lively delightful little beachside town.

As we pulled into our accommodation we were greeted by the neighbours apologising for the noise they’d planned to make for New Year, and our daughter’s partner setting up the boiler so he could cook ups the crabs he’d caught in the morning.

Black Point used to just be shacks on the beachfront but today there is a little more development with more modern beach house built behind.  Our daughter’s partner’s family shack fronts straight onto the beach. It was once just one room and a verandah although today it’s been made a little more modern with separate bedrooms and an indoor bathroom and loo! It is the verandah that is the focal point. It’s right on the beach. I have photos of my daughter’s partner fishing off the verandah but the tide was out so there was no chance of that on this occasion.

What could be better for enjoying this lovely location?

Our view from the verandah

The beach and the ocean are the focus here. Continue reading →

My Top Songs 2018 Part Two

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In my previous post, I looked at the Top 15 of my Spotify Top Songs of 2018. In this post rather than going numerically through the remaining 85 I have picked out a selection.

I thought I would top and tail this post with extremes.

In my Top 20 is, what my daughter refers to as my ode to Eurotrash – Loreen’s Euphoria, winner of the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. Only to be listened to at the gym with the volume at the max!

David Bowie is also in my Top 20 with Life on Mars. I can’t say Bowie is a go-to in my music listening, but there are some of his albums that I adore and Hunky Dory of which Life on Mars is the fourth track on side one is definitely one. I can’t remember when I bought the album, it’s an import so it must have been around 1975 when a school friend of mine and I took advantage of the huge difference in exchange rates between the UK and Australia and started importing records.  Whether its Life on Mars, Changes, Kooks, Andy Warhol, this is a classic album and seeing it in My Top Songs gave me an excuse to fire up the turntable and give it a spin.

America’s Ventura Highway. The simplicity and harmonies make America’s music and Ventura Highway, in particular, a regular on my Spotify Playlists. Continue reading →

My Top Songs 2018 Part One

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As Christmas and the end of the year approaches the reflections on the year begin.

One I look forward to is Spotify’s, “Your Top Songs”, and it arrived in the Spotify App in the last few days.  Over the next couple of posts, I will run through the list.

First up is what I regard as my all time favourite song – Born to Run.  It is the title track of the album I have no hesitation in saying is my favourite album of all time.  The album version was the one featured in my most listened too, although it could just as easily have been one of the many other versions I have from Springsteen’s concerts which now are thankfully able to be downloaded. From the opening wall of sound to the end this song has it all. My most vivid memory of the song isn’t seeing it performed live but a morning recess in Year 12, when the teacher who introduced me to Bruce put the song on in the Music Centre. He had it absolutely pumping out through the school HiFi. Forty plus years on having it pumping out is the only way to listen to Born to Run.

Second and a complete change of pace are The Carpenters, We’ve Only Just Begun. Certainly a contrast from the first song on my list but still a song I don’t tire of.

Next is by Australian, music icon Brian Cadd, Ginger Man.  I’ve loved Brian Cadd from his days in Axiom and Arkansas Grass. Ginger Man is a song of its era, about times past, when we posted letters and travelling from Australia to the other side of the world, in this case, the USA was an epic journey.  The references to his  Dad and brother mythical or otherwise, are so real, I feel I am eavesdropping on a very personal letter back home. Brian Cadd a songwriter of extraordinary talent and a characteristic voice released Ginger Man in 1972, a golden period of Australian music. I have seen Brian Cadd live many, many times from the very first concert I ever went to in 1972 through to a couple of years ago when he toured with a fellow Axiom member and former lead singer of Little River Band, Glenn Shorrock.  He is a storyteller and Ginger Man is one of his best. Continue reading →

Time to update my “About” page – I’m 60!

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Sitting on a burial chamber – Sanday, Orkney Islands

There is a major update to my blog – I’m 60!

No longer are these the musings of a fifty-something but a sixty-something. Ten whole years ahead of me before I need to refresh on this topic – lucky you the reader!

How ironic that my desire to update my About page coincided with an urgent desire to listen to Bruce Springsteen.

He is like an old friend – wish he was!!

Springsteen has been with me for even longer than my favourite person, albeit only by a few years. Through my teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and yes my 50s! It was however only in my 50s that I finally saw him live, twice in fact.

Still, this is post is about my About page, Continue reading →

Well into my fourth year of “What’s Next”

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A recent conversation with my daughter-in-law and the birth of our first grandchild provided a point of reflection on where I am at in “What’s Next”. Perhaps my impending 60th birthday was an added impetus?

It’s been over three and a half years since my last day in the office. While I didn’t formally retire until 30 June 2015, I effectively retired from my firm at the end of March in that year.

So here’s my report card.

I haven’t missed the office for even one day! Continue reading →