By Donna Kelly

“You should have never started it,” Trump said. “You” being Ukraine and “it” being the war that Russia clearly started when it launched a full-scale  invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, having annexed Crimea in 2014.  

The world has gone nuts. And the sad thing is some people, perhaps mostly MAGA idiots, will believe it. And history is rewritten. Much like the Gulf of America with Google maps already showing the new title – almost before the ink was dry on the presidential order.  

Then there’s the renaming of Denali, the highest mountain in North America, to Mount McKinley. Denali is based on the Koyukon name of the mountain, with the Koyukon a people of Alaskan Athabaskans.

The McKinley bit happened in 1896  when a gold prospector came upon it and thought he would randomly commemorate former US president William McKinley. Of course, McKinley never stepped foot in Alaska.  

Anyway, enough about that. I am just glad I got to Europe before Covid and then America last year. I love Australia and I think I will just do a bit more wandering around this great nation – which doesn’t need to be made great again, no matter what Clive Palmer thinks. Good grief.  

New Zealand is also wonderful and I hear the Chinese are buying up land there in droves in readiness for climate change. Along with southern Australia. Smart  buggers.  

We popped over the ditch a couple of weeks back for a family catch-up. Had a  great time, well apart from the B&B which you can read about over on the left in Kyle’s Rant.

The family was fun, food was great, scenery (Kaikoura) was absolutely breathtaking and Kyle and his 80-year-old dad and a few others even went ziplining.  

Came back a little worse for wear but obviously had the time of their lives. Not my thing so I went shopping with the 11-year-old great niece who was so cute I couldn’t resist buying things for her. Mind you, she loves op-shopping so it wasn’t too onerous on my credit card.

Charlie ended up with a present to give her grandmother, another one for her mum, a stuffed alpaca, lip gloss, strawberry fudge, a tin of marshmallow, some chocolate biscuits, Kiwi biscuits including Shrewsberries and Ginger Nuts to give to Kyle, an orange slushie and a can of Dr Pepper – yuk.  

Kyle’s sister’s family used to live in Christchurch, until that massive earthquake, with Sharlene working just across from the CTV building that collapsed. She ran all the way through the city, through liquefaction, to her son’s school.

I always  remember thinking she was fitter than I realised.  So they moved to Kaikoura just in time for the earthquake there that lifted the sea level by three metres.

They were living by the beach, heard the tsunami warning,  got to the grandchild staying with them and then drove off up the hill – pulling up only to unhitch the boat that was being towed behind them.

I have asked them not to move to Hepburn Shire – just in case.  

Anyway, back home now, with summer slowly coming to an end which means it’s time for fun with festivals – like ChillOut.  The Local has been a proud media partner for 11 years now and I must admit I do love being in the parade. This year is no  different.

The theme is circus which, as  Kyle says, suits us perfectly. We are pretty much a three-ringed circus most of the time, just keeping the balls in the air. And the general manager is a bit of a clown at  times. Just sayin’.  

Regular readers of my rhetoric will  know that I have been in a battle with Hepburn Shire Council over my subdivision that has taken around three years. (You may have read my latest rant in the last edition.)  

But it transpires that all you need is a newspaper for a soapbox and you can get a bit done around the place. With the final bits of sign-off emerging before the ink had dried on our last newspaper – the power of the press.  

Speaking of press and advertising, puffery is a legal term used when advertisers say something about their product that’s immeasurable; it can’t be about a measurable fact.  

For example, a business can say they are one of the most respected in the world or they have the best steak that money can buy – this cannot be measured due to the number of contingencies in the statement.  

However, if a business misrepresents itself by saying they serve the cheapest steak in the district (and it’s not) or an accommodation provider shows a photo of a view that is clearly not obtained from the lounge room, this becomes illegal puffery.

You are welcome.  

My tale about the wrong kind of puffery begins on last week’s post-Christmas family holiday in the sleepy New Zealand hamlet of Kaikoura, now pronounced Kaikouda, which means to eat crayfish. Which is one of the many activities this place provides, with its 2800-metre mountains only a couple of kilometres from the sea and the sea bottom plunging to below 300 metres only a mile or so offshore.

This place is spectacular and requires no puffery.  

In 2016 an earthquake struck the town, two people died and it was estimated that the seabed rose as much as three metres, forever changing the landscape.  

A lot of the houses were written off and a lot more owners were given money to repair their homes by the government. And there are some amazing residences.  

Unfortunately, the house that we picked for our small break which talked of beautiful bay views and an amazing location wasn’t one of them. It was the filled-in bottom half of a house tucked down a street with no views and when the owners moved around upstairs it felt like the ceiling was going to collapse.

And the creaking!  It was so bad that we felt that had an earthquake hit that weekend we would end up in a pile of rubble as the house collapsed on top of us.  

I asked the owner for a refund based simply on the noise, we only stayed there three of our seven nights, and she said her hands were tied, so we are now in an arm wrestle with Airbnb because apparently, we are covered by AirCover, an insurance policy they offer.  

Their first offer of support we have already refused. A refund of $100 against the $1600 we had already dropped on the place.  As we do, we’ll keep pushing for a better result. Let you know how that goes.  

Puffery rant over…  

By Donna Kelly

I enjoy travel as much as imparting a cautionary tale. So you can’t imagine my joy at our latest travel adventure. Hmmm.  

After four years of Covid we were off on a cruise to Central America, a bucket list for Kyle if you will, as a confirmed boatie and someone who has always wanted to see the Panama Canal in action.

So off we went. Not cheap, but Mum left me some money in her will when we  lost her in 2020, well she died, and I always thought it would be a good idea to spend it on travel.  

Mum loved travel and we took her on a number of bucket lists, Iceland and Russia, and we had booked a 2020 trip to Japan, Hong Kong and China, but we all  know how that worked out. Stupid Covid.

Anyway, I felt we had Mum’s blessing to spend the inheritance on a once-in-a lifetime trip to America and beyond.  And it was an amazing voyage. But not without a few hiccups. As seems to be the  case. I think as a journo I attract issues. Not sure.  

Our first little blip was arriving at the airport, all excited and being asked if we had our ESTA – an Electronic System for Travel Authorization. So you don’t need a visa for the US.  Now I had read all about it and knew that as Australians we didn’t need a visa but  I didn’t know I needed a waiver so I didn’t need a visa.

But the woman at Air New  Zealand knew because when she heard we didn’t have one she simply said: “Well, you can’t go.” And that was that. I kid you not.  

They can take up to three days or 72 hours if you count slowly and our plane was leaving in two. So we hotfooted it to a travel agent over the way who said it might  come through in less. She helped us fill out the form, took some money from us and  said she would be in touch. FFS.  

Meanwhile, distraught, we decided we would fly to at least NZ, our stopover, and maybe end up having a few weeks there. The OK for the US came after we had checked our luggage and while we were in the security queue. Safe. Off we went, all smiles again. Doesn’t take much to make us happy. 🙂

Next little hiccup was feeling a bit average about a week before the cruise ended.  So off I popped to the ship’s medical centre for an antibiotic. Too easy. At 59 I know my health. Not as much as them apparently.  

Over that day and the next I was given a Covid/influenza/RSV nasal swab and a urine test for legionnaire’s disease – both clear, then a chest x-ray which showed I probably had pneumonia, despite no cough, and needed morning and night rounds of nebulisers, two rounds of intravenous antibiotics, a oral course of antibiotics and steroids, cough mixture, paracetamol and antihistamines.  

I got better really fast – although I nearly had a heart attack when I got the bill for the first day – US $4000. Again, I kid you not. I have not yet opened the bill for the second day. That has the urine sample – who knows what that added. We do have  travel insurance so it should work out – but if not, the crew Christmas party might be a bit low key.  

And now I think about it, I really should have gone for extras. Maybe asked for a quick tummy tuck, or get them to take care of that ingrown toe nail, perhaps a routine colonoscopy. I mean, in for a penny, in for US$20,000, said no-one ever.  

Oh, almost last thing. Our vaccination doctor talked us out of yellow fever vaccinations but coming back through border patrol they were a little unhappy with our decision not to bother. “If you feel sick, tell your doctor,” were the final words.  Not sure I ever want to see a doctor again though, just sayin’…  

The really last thing. This (below) was a dessert one night. Is it just me? Or, well, you know. Are they having a lend and laughing their heads off out the back as the passengers bite into this. Not sure…

By Donna Kelly

I managed to break my wrist, in two spots, during a recent weekend celebrating Kyle’s dad’s 80th over  in New Zealand.  

It happened on the Saturday night,  I must admit after a couple of wines,  but there was also a very slippy patch on the lawn where a tree had recently  been removed.  

We were heading home on the  Monday so I hoped it was just a sprain and nursed it back to Australia.  

I went to the doctor who was  worried I had broken my scaphoid  which is apparently quite a bad thing to do. It’s also known as the snuff  box – sort of the spot between the base  of your forefinger and your thumb – I  guess where people used to put stuff to  snuff.  

If that was the case it was going to be about eight weeks in a cast which would  have been a real pain with showering and plastic bags etc.  But the x-ray showed it was a bit lower down, or is that higher up the wrist, and  all I have to do is wear a wrist brace for a few weeks while it knits up.

And I can still type, which Kyle is pretty happy about. Would be a slow news day every day if I had to rely on Kyle and his two-finger typing for the paper.  

So I am pretty happy and also very pleased that I live in Australia. Someone asked  if I had thought about getting an x-ray in NZ but that is a hard no. Especially where  we were up north of the north island.  

Kyle’s step-mother died a couple of years ago after about six months of severe back pain, so bad she was doing nightly trips to the local hospital in an ambulance.  Each time they sent her home, telling her the last time, she needed to walk  around more because she was basically being lazy.

I kid you not.  Then came the call that the tests, finally done, revealed she had stage four bone cancer in her back – and was heading to palliative care.  

More recently, after years of grieving, Kyle’s dad put himself back onto the  market and met a lovely woman who we were introduced to at the party weekend.  

Di had some pretty bad stomach pains happening and a few days after we left she got a call to say the tests showed she had stage four bowel cancer.  But, and this is the rub, they were happy to catch up with her in six weeks to  have a chat about moving forward.

No mention of pain relief, mental health help, nothing. You couldn’t write this stuff. And of course, they are of an age where doctor knows best and there is no-one to advocate for them.  

I felt lucky that the few times Mum needed help I could be there for her. She  had a fall once, straight onto her back, off a stool that she apparently needed to find something on a top shelf in the kitchen.  

Anyway, she had to go into respite care for six weeks but was lucky enough  to find something just over the way from her retirement village unit – in the same  complex. But when we arrived there was just a bed.  

I asked whether there was a television happening? No. A chair for visitors? No. Not sure what they thought Mum would do for six weeks in an empty room but Kyle just marched back to her place and returned the first time with a comfy armchair and then on the second trip, a television.

While she was there, they had a food poisoning outbreak and closed off all the  rooms so the patients could not spread anything around. I remember visiting one day  and asking when the movement ban would be lifted. It turned out to be the previous day but they hadn’t got around to telling patients or removing strict signs. FFS.  

Finally, Mum was given clearance to return home, but the head matron told me she thought Mum should stay one more night. I asked why and didn’t get a real reason. I think there must be some nice government funding available for high needs people. Or is that just me being cynical.

Anyway, Mum went home that day.  Not sure what to do about Di. Do we head back over and try to fix a broken medical system? Or leave Di to die?

Can you pay for advocates or do they have to be related to the patient to get involved?  Not sure on this one. Just sayin’…  

We are heading off to New Zealand in a few weeks, for my dad’s birthday.  The old bugger is turning 80 so we can’t really say no.

We had thought it would  be nicer for the entire family to head to the Gold Coast or somewhere warm but Cliff  was keen to stay home – he doesn’t like to travel much anymore.  

Nothing really wrong with him, no medication at all so far, not even blood  pressure or cholesterol like most middle-aged people, just can’t be bothered going  overseas.  

Mind you, he doesn’t mind travelling in his own backyard. Just bought a huge  campervan earlier this year. Upgraded from a van with a sort of homemade bed in the  back and a shower system hooked up off the back somewhere to swivel-front chairs,  and a small kitchen and bathroom. Sheer luxury.  

I worry about Cliff, now and again. He is your kind of “rip, shit and bust” bloke  who would rather climb on a roof and nearly fall off than call someone younger with two working knees.  

He also has a small fishing boat which he takes out a few times a week. By  himself. No life jacket. I once bought him a life jacket and was amused, not, to see it draped over a kitchen chair every time we Facetimed him. It never even made it on  the boat.  

At 80 Cliff is no longer working but often talks about all the taxes he has paid over the years, which I find funny because I don’t recall him paying tax after he was about 45, he’s a bit of a wheeler dealer. I don’t know if he has ever paid taxes.  

He is also a bit of a strange dad because rather than being pleased with achievements, he likes to talk them down.

Actually, he doesn’t even do that, just talks  over them with things he has done over the years. Even if that is 50 years ago. I hear a  few people get stuck with narcissistic parents – I guess it’s just the luck of the draw.  

Donna used to live in The Range when she was growing up in Frankston and she always thought the words to that song, Home on the Range, were “seldom was heard,  an encouraging word”. True story.

Bet was horrified when she sang it to her one day.  “We always encouraged you,” Betty apparently told her. “Why did dad call my BA  degree, Bugger All?” she asked. “He was just having fun,” she replied. Funny bugger.  

Anyway, we head off to Auckland and then up to the Bay of Islands for a night at  the local bowlo, and then the following night at Cliff’s.

A few friends and family are  coming along and some are staying in their vans in the yard, others in the house.  Donna and I are in a nearby motel. She learned long ago to never stay with  family. Just doesn’t work out well. I think she told me she likes her own bathroom.  

And very early on I told Dad that. So the one time we did stay, in a little attached  bungalow, Cliff was very proud to show her the room had its own toilet. Yep, a full- sized toilet, not plumbed in or anything, just with a cartridge inside the base – and a  curtain.

I think that is when the “no staying with family” rule kicked in.

Or it might have  been at my mum’s house where we got to sleep on cushions from the lounge suite, on  the floor but behind the actual lounge for privacy.  I am sure it will be a fun-filled weekend with lots of strolls down memory lane.  

I have made up a very nice video which we will finish with a rousing rendition of  Happy Birthday. Should we try for 80 candles on the cake? Could be fun.

Or we  could start an friendly argument with a pavlova cake. Kiwis think they invented  them. Lots of ideas…  

And then the next big one is Donna’s next year. Sixty. How the hell did that  happen? Just wondering? Getting older, rant over