Click on me, and again on the resulting image.

This blog is no more than my random perceptions of  Jamestown and those who live,  work and play there, and every now and then,  a bit of  town “gossip”. It is intended to fill in the gap until we get our previous “JamestownEvents” site up and running again when will transfer most of it to that site.

Please feel free to leave comments and or suggestions regarding my observations or anything else that you feel may be of interest to Jamestown residents.

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All posts are are tracked and inappropriate or offensive comments will be deleted and reported to the offender’s ISP .

I first heard of the proposed skate park some time prior to may 2008 when local boys in my area were selling raffle tickets to raise money.  At that time, all there was to show for the proposed  facility were some mounds of earth pushed up in the park lands between Boston Ford and the Catholic Church, and that was as much as was done until one day in late May 2009 when I saw that some bunting and several pieces if steelwork had been dropped off at the site.

Even in the photo below it is apparent from the tyre marks that the kids were just “busting a gut” in anticipation, using the still muddy site as a place to practice

29 may 2009

Nothing more seemed to happen until January 2010 when things started to move again.

02 Feb 2010

Over the succeeding weeks it all started to come together with a Port Pirie firm providing much of the labour and the great work of Ian Garde our local concreter par excellence,  seen hard at work below.

12 February 2010

Once the job was started, it moved along very quickly.

15 Feb 2010

It wasn’t until Thursday, 13 March,  that I saw it in use, after watching it’s, on again, off again, progress over the last two or more years.

13 March 2010

I must say that on the days that I have been present,  I was quite surprised at the good behaviour of the kids using the facility. On more than one occasion, several of the older users (12 -16 year olds) held up the traffic to allow the “littlies” to have a go on their own rather than having to thread their way through the larger and faster traffic.

On every occasion that I have been at the Skate Park, it has been very busy, and already it seems that it will probably need extending when finances allow,…   and from what I can see, it seems that provision has been made for this on the Southern side.

I fully realise that as yet, it is only early days, but to me,  the money seems to have been well spent.  Of course it remains to be seen how the area is treated by those who frequent the area.

My heartiest congratulations to all of those who stuck with the concept through a long and tiring battle to get this great facility for our local kids.

We are very fortunate in Jamestown in that we do have a  new Supermarket, which over all is a terrific improvement on it’s predecessor,  and we also have some competition,… even though the competition is actually owned by the same parent company.  It matters not, as the stores themselves are independently owned and seem to pretty much  ‘run their own race’ with different pricing regimes and different Specials every week which gives the shoppers a very good choice.

Now, I do not do a great deal of the weekly grocery shopping myself, but it has been bought to my attention by a number of persons, that there are still a small number of annoying  bugbears in the way that our new Supermarket operates. Most of these things were to be expected when the store first opened, but it seems that some customers feel that it is now time some of these issues were looked at a little more closely.

The singular largest source of discontent appears to be that many persons are finding that items on “Special” are not being charged at the special price at the cash register.   I would think that it is certainly not the fault of the check out girls, as from what I understand, the prices at the cash registers are all entered into and controlled by a main computer elsewhere in the store. To me, it would seem that there is obviously a communication problem somewhere in the  system.

It would appear that this problem is very prevalent with one shopper having to have this anomaly corrected  four times in as many weeks, sometimes for more than one item.  She told me that it is starting to become embarrassing, as she feels that now when the poor checkout girls see her coming they all start to cringe, probably thinking, “Oh No! what now”.   All over something, over which they have no control whatsoever.

The next bone of contention  that many persons who go shopping with  the intention of  purchasing some of the  weekly “specials” are being disappointed in that the items listed for that week’s specials are not on the shelves,….  but apparently appear, as if by magic once the special offer has expired.  This also is not an uncommon event as a number of persons have noted this.

14th. March, 2010.

Yesterday, Sunday 14th. March,  I ventured to the Skate park again in  the hope of taking a few short movie clips showing some of the skills of the older boys, with their bikes.  Somewhat to my surprise, there were only 2 or 3 younger teenagers, but it seemed to be a day for the younger users with their scooters and although there were nearly twenty active users it was far less chaotic than on previous visits. There was also a good representation of interested parents, and in one case grandparents

Scooters Galore.

It appears that the popularity of the skate park has been causing troubles in one area. I have been told by one parent that the School teachers now have to get someone to rustle up the kids for their lessons in the mornings and at lunch time. 

Each week we receive a brochure containing the next weeks Specials,  clearly stating across the bottom that the special prices are on offer from the Monday to the following Sunday or until stocks run out.

So,…  as a working mum she endeavours to get in early to avoid missing out on good specials, however it appears that the items advertised as going on special for that week do not arrive in Jamestown prior to the sale commencing,… sometimes not until the following Wednesday,  meaning that the item is only actually available at the Special price for a few days rather than the week as advertised.

This may not be a terrible inconvenience to persons who are able to shop at their leisure, but to people with limited access it is a great disadvantage especially with items where the amount on offer is limited.

The question was raised, “Why do they not get items advertised for the next weeks Specials, prior to the week commencing thereby allowing customers the benefit of the full week’s offer”?

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She also raised the old bugbear of only very small numbers of certain varieties of bread being put out at any time meaning that customers have to chase around and find a staff member willing to go out to the store room an get more.

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My particular thanks, and that of The Little Woman,  goes to Leonie and her young son who do the deliveries with great regularity, unlike their predecessor who often ran a week late, if the deliveries were done at all.

“Thank you to our brochure delivery persons”

You do a great job and we do appreciate it.

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My first entry(I had to start somewhere ) is about using “Smilies” as many persons do like to use them to express their feelings in a comment, as one’s feelings are not always clear in text comments.

What Are Smileys?

Smileys, also known as “emoticons,” are glyphs used to convey emotions in your writing. They are a great way to brighten up posts.

Text smileys are created by typing two or more punctuation marks. Some examples are:

I have added a space between the  Colon or Semi Colon ” : or ; ” and the other two elements so that  it shows as text rather than the emoticon.

; -) is equivalent to
: -) is equivalent to
: -( is equivalent to
: -? is equivalent to

From what I have been told, the pond is being enlarged, and deepened in three separate sections.  The idea being to increase the storage volume and  also lessen the evaporation so that the treated water will be available for later use.

To be Continued….

“There are few things I enjoy more than a “nice” cup of coffee”. I have  deliberately used the word “nice” rather than good, because although I may not be able to judge a “good” cup of coffee, I certainly know what I like.

I don’t drink a lot of it, but it is certainly one of my great pleasures to sit and savour a cup of coffee, which to the great horror of many coffee “connoisseurs” (corner sewers), I will drink with relish at any temperature. I feel that perhaps this is a hangover from my sea going days where cups of coffee were often interrupted and left sometimes for hours. The Little Woman (note the capitalisation, hereinafter “TLW”) has never quite got over this peculiarity, and will shudder visibly when I walk in the back door at 11:00 AM, and finish off my now stone cold cup of breakfast coffee.  Yet she will go to the fridge and have an iced coffee without a second thought,……    (mine has more flavour and I find Iced coffee far to milky) Eeeewwww,…yuk.

I have always preferred coffee to tea,  for as long as I can remember, even long before I was allowed to drink the heavenly brew. The smell of good coffee immediately transports me back to the cold winter’s nights of my early childhood, when my Father would bring home a paper bag of cracked coffee beans from one of his old workplaces, where he maintained friendships until the day he died.

Before I was born Dad had his own truck and worked as a deliveryman for Henry Berry’s,  who were providores and suppliers to the restaurant and hotel trade.  Two of the items that they stocked were coffee beans and raw chocolate, bitter and still containing coarse fibres of cocoa bean.  Both of these things bring back  pleasant memories of almost 60 years ago, where we all sat huddled around the two bar electric heater in the small kitchen at the back of our Newsagency listening the the radio.  Mum knitted and Dad read the paper,  whereas Robert my brother stoically endured the cold of his upstairs bedroom, where he read his “Modern Motor” magazines  (He was a car enthusiast as long as I can remember), and assembled model aircraft.  Yes,…  the smell of “Tarzan’s Grip” and aircraft dope also sends my mind skittering back through the years to those early days

Some time prior to our evening meal,  dad would have sought out mum’s smallest saucepan which he would then fill almost to the top with the cracked coffee beans,  it was then filled similarly with water and put on the wood stove to gently boil for an hour or two. By the time that the meal was finished and the drying up done, the smell of coffee would fill the kitchen,  (and no doubt much of the house)

During the first hour or so, as it boiled, dad would carefully top up the brew with hot water from the kettle several times and then when it was nearly done, the now well boiled beans were scooped out of the saucepan with what resembled a long handled tea strainer and the result was carefully examined for colour, smell and consistency and when judged as being ready,  a desert spoon full of sugar was added, he would then move the saucepan onto the hotter part of the stove top and allow it to boil down into a thick creamy essence.

The clinking of mum’s demitasse cups was the signal for brother Robert to come down from his upstairs room, who being 13 years older than I, was allowed to partake,…  the smell  by this time was heavenly and almost overpowering,  as dad carefully poured out his “Turkish Coffee” into the cup which was then sipped and savoured as one would expect  from a pair of the world’s top coffee judges.

The pleasure that was evident on their faces was almost beyond description, and I am sure that it had a profound influence on my appreciation of coffee to this day.

To be continued…..

My first preference is for Espresso, or a short black  as they are known in the more ‘yuppie’ coffee establishments,  in my case, made from  Arabica beans, as to my taste, these are sweeter. Ahhhh,….  and the smell is just,  rapturous. That is about the only word that I can think of to describe it.

For a variation I often resort to a nice Cappuccino, which does not have the enchanting  fragrance of the Espresso, but a more chocolaty smell, the taste being  softer and milkier and of course the cup much larger and warming.

I know, when it comes to eating and drinking pleasures I am an absolute plebeian  with the  simplest of tastes.  However, my occupation being what it was,  I got to drink coffee all over the world in all manner of establishments, and although this has not necessarily made me a good judge of coffee,  I now feel that I certainly know what I like, which has led me to some rather strongly held ideas.

My overall impression is that coffee drinkers are adopting the snobbishness of  the wine buffs, particularly with “brand name” acceptance.  Hell,… I had Starbucks coffee in the 1990s when it was the darling child of American coffee fanatics,   my opinion, Blehhh,….   it was coffee, somewhat burnt tasting and not at all “nice”,  and worse than that  it was served, take away  in a plastic cup at a highly over inflated price (for what it was).

I have drunk Bundy and Coke out of old pickle jars, and probably worse,  and it had not the slightest effect on the enjoyment of the beverage, but coffee in a plastic milkshake sized container,… No Thank You!!!…  to me that is like supping champagne out of Tupperware “sippy cups”.  Y’know, those little cups with the tightly fitted lid and inbuilt spout for small children.   Or am I just becoming a coffee snob?

I would say that in my opinion, the best place I have found to get cheap and consistently “nice” coffee would have to be in the Canary Islands where I once had the good fortune to be marooned at company expense waiting for a flight home.

Whilst there, I drank so many espressos that I literally could not sleep on the night before my flight left at 05:30am, and so I spent the wee small hours wandering the streets of  Santa Cruz, drifting from one outdoor coffee bar to another, (they are everywhere) where I would sit and  occasionally chat in broken “Spanglish” with other late night revellers.  The late night people of Tenerife make very hospitable and pleasant companions at 3:00am    It was not long after this that I had to go back to my hotel room and throw everything in my bag ready for a 4:00am cab ride to the airport, it was a great couple of days, nice weather,  pleasant people, and excellent coffee.