A very busy month on almost all fronts has been September. Major news in Sports, Politics, International Finance and for us as well.

The month started for Adelaide with the Royal Show which ran from the 5th to the 13th. The annual extravaganza is held in the Showgrounds at Wayville in the southwest corner of the city. Livestock of all kinds, commercial displays, rides of all description as well as competitions in cooking, catering, log chopping. Very similar to the Royal Highland show. Fireworks every night. It is expensive and always thronged day and night for the duration. The society makes millions of dollars. My beef, is the exorbitant cost to enter the showgrounds for basically the ability to spend your money. It can cost the average family about $50 just to enter. Far too much in my opinion. It is however always a success and this year the weather smiled on it also.

Talking of the weather, we have just had (in the city) the driest September for over 20 years, something we definitely did not need.

Part way throught the Show fell Father's Day, Australia's being held later than the UK. I benefit from both as Tracey in Edinburgh "does" Scotlands and ours and of course Lauren-Jane is here. Sometimes "doubledipping" is fun. I had a lovely day.

Politics has been interesting this month. Federally the leader of the Opposition (Brendan Nelson) who has been under lots of pressure both from his own party and the 'Opinion' polls called a snap leadership ballot. Mistake big time! Malcolm Turnbull (mainly behind the destabilising pressure) got up by 3 votes (Nelson won initially by 2 I Think).

The new leader has started of well, but it may still be a "poisonned chalice". In an interesting twist the Government has been focussing on Turnbulls wealth. Supposedly worth approximately $120 +Million, more or less self made. You can imagine the sort of quotes and comments. Unfortunately, they have tended to rebound. The Prime Minister's (Kevin Rudd) family is worth about $60+million!

On Kevin, he has spent large amounts of time since being elected out of the country. His most recent trip to the United Nations to talk of Global Warming and of course the current Sub-prime crisis. Not sure that UN members were that interested in what he had to say as chamber was less than quarter full. His wife of course accompanied him. Not sure who paid her fare. He is now being called (by some) Kevin747 (during the election campaign it was "Time for Kevin 07!).

Here in South Australia we have suffered a $200 million blow due to the financial crisis, watch this space for, if not tax rises at the least rises on "fees and charges"!!

On a more pleasant note there have been two very special days for the State. The first was the City to Bay fun run sponsorred by the Advertiser (our daily paper). Approximately, 29,000 runners, walkers, strollers and wheelchairs took part on the 21st, a fine sunny day. It is a 12 kilometre trip. The Athletes cover it in about 36 minutes - well the best of them do. The rest when they can. A week later on the 28th there was the Bay to Birdwood, this is an outing for vintage and veteran vehicles, all had to be pre 1956. 1247 cars trucks motor-bikes took part, it is about 50 kilometers and almost 12,000 spectators lined the city streets to see them pass. Many spectators with their picnic seats and baskets, not to mention the Sparkling (we cant call it Champagne, can we?) make as much of a scene as the participants. The period costumes of all are as much a part of the day as the vehicles. The run ends at the Birdwood Motor Museum. Itself a great day out.

School holidays are with us also. Lauren-Jane as usual will be with the horses for the next two weeks. She took part in the Festival of Music at the Adelaide Festival Cetre on the 14th. This is a festival of primary school choirs which has been held for 117 years. Lauren's school also performed "solo' on the 16th which she enjoyed very much. The choir is off to New Zealand for a week an the end of this month. Needless to say Lauren is looking forward to that. Now if only she could take the horse it would be heaven!

In the last two weeks Kim and I have been to a 60th and a wedding. The 60th was a surprise for Denis of the dinner party group and the wedding was his son's. Both very enjoyable events.

Sport has played a significant part in our lives this last month. There have been the Finals' series in both Australian rules and rugby league. In Australian Rules, Hawthorn beat last years winners Geelong in an upset before 100,000+ at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. We watched the second half in the Hampstead Hotel, my old "local", in between the wedding ceremony and the reception. I was in dress highland so got quite a few"offers". I'll say no more on that. The League grand final is October 5 in Sydney. In South OZ our footy grand final is the 5th as well. We will be there. Our team, Centrals are in the final. That is not a surprise as they have been in every one this century. It is their 9th straight having won 6 of the previous 8. Not a bad record. If only Hearts were paying attention!. On the real football Adelaide United have just reached the semi final of the Asian Champions League. They are the first Australian team to do this. Fingers crossed. They play a team from Tashkent over the usual two legs. First game is on the 8th October. The good or bad news on that next month.

Summer time starts for us on the 5th also, you can see it will be a busy weekend. Summer time will go until the first Sunday in April. There are still people here who complain that summer time causes their curtains to fade quicker due to the "extra" sunshine and that the cows are too confused to milk properly. Anyone for a flat earth?

'Til next time, Take Care

Eric

(article by Eric Ford, Australia)