The Trump news cycle

And the main street. If you follow it one way you end up in Esperance, on the south coast of WA and home to beautiful beaches and big sharks. Gnowangerup itself is the centre of one of the world's finest wool growing areas, fine Merino wool.

Went for a road trip yesterday to a little country town called Gnowangerup. Lived there for 18 months as a child and had never been back.

Bought this after a recommendation.

And now this for a look at Weimar Germany

Dog day afternoon nap

39.5C on the coast

America is getting close to a tipping point. Scary to think it may choose the wrong course.

Well summer has begun with a bang here in #Perth. 39C for December 1st, hottest on record. #Cottesloe beach was great

My last night as a 57 year old. Now 58, and it keeps speeding up.

Post a duo

Who doesn't like ducklings?

Another footballer with a career finished by persistent concussions. A lot of sports around the world face massive changes or their disappearance over the next decades. McGovern the greatest defender of his generation.

Some recent book purchases #history #crime #fiction

Some First World War books waiting to be read next to my bed currently

Blossom the guard dog, always alert for stray food, people or dogs

Scenes from a long road trip. 500kms+. Gorgeous weather but the wheatbelt needs rain.

And here is the Collie River on the edge of the town

Here is the Premier Coal Mine just outside of Collie. The town was named Collie after the first English Explorer to pass through in the early days of the Swan River Colony c1830.

Poor old Williams River has barely enough water to fill a bath, but the Collie and Hotham Rivers were both substantial where I crossed them

This part of the wheatbelt is full of river valleys and small streams- its also got coal, bauxite and gold mining. Saw many flocks of shorn and unshorn sheep, some cattle and horses and even some water buffalo!

Took a road trip today through some lovely, if parched, countryside around Quindanning, Williams, Darkan and Collie. Early May and its still in the high 20sC, so not many farm dams have water. Here are some videos, starting on Lower Hotham Road

The tourist train at Busselton Jetty slow trundles to its terminus at the end of the longest Jetty in the Southern Hemisphere

From the ABC today (the Aussie one).

Suspicious! We all know who the hitman was.

An example of some of the handwriting I have been peering at for years as I work my way through the copious records my subject left in the files. #19thCentury #handwriting #transcribing

It's hard looking back to your first overseas trip and realising its half a lifetime ago. Me in Scotland 1996