I got notification last night that a fellow West Australian Etsian has included my “Two Little Chicks” fabric art card in her ‘Wild Wild West Showcase’ Treasury featuring Western Australian Etsy sellers. Considering how many there are, I’m honoured to have made the list of 12 items she selected.
Here’s a screen shot of the Treasury (Treasuries only last a few days on Etsy, then they disappear):
Featuring my "Two Little Chicks"
You know, I’ve been thinking (always a dangerous practice!). I’ve been thinking about how there have been some very overt means of stimulating the Australian economy in the past 12 months. And recently I’ve been thinking about some less overt methods that haven’t been advertised and promoted as economic stimulators, but which really are.
Specifically these two:
Just think about it. The Australian government has paid around $100 million to get this vaccine made, which has helped the drug companies and related industries no end. That’s the overt bit.
The less overt bit is what comes with the ‘free’ vaccine. The vaccine is free, but unless you go to one of the (few) free immunisation clinics (and I think you have to be in a high risk category for that) you have to pay your normal consultation fee to get it from your local GP.
Our local medical practice charges around $50 for a standard consultation, so I’ll take that as an average. Let’s say only 10 million of Australia’s 22 million citizens take advantage of the free swine flu vaccine from their GP. At an average of $50 per visit, that’s just put back some $500 million back into the economy — perhaps money that was lingering in bank accounts not doing anything. If 20 million get the free vaccine, that’s $1,000,000,000!
And not only does that ‘stimulus package’ keep the medical practices ticking over, but all the associated industries including Medicare as well. And it frees up some $500 million or so from bank accounts and puts it back into the economy. I don’t have any problem with that, but maybe it would be more honest if someone really called this for what it is — a stimulus package aimed at getting money from ordinary people’s accounts.
When I was in my local post office today, the nice lady behind the counter offered me two coupons for competitions that Australia Post is running — one for a car, the other for a plasma TV. All I have to do is complete the entry forms, put stamps on them and send them in.
Whoa back there! Put a stamp on it? For a competition run by Australia Post and for which the entry forms only seem to be available from Australia Post post offices? So what’s really going on here? I’d expect that a competition run by Australia Post would accept entries into a box inside the PO. But no. We have to whack a stamp on the entry form!
So, who is this benefitting? Well, Australia Post and the companies offering the prizes will get a big database of potential customers they can market to. And Australia Post gets the revenue from all the extra stamps it sells. At 50c a pop, that’s $1 for each different form submitted.
And does Australia Post actually deliver the entry forms via the normal mail service, or do the forms go into a big bag in the PO waiting until the closing date when they are bundled up and sent as a special delivery to the Australia Post address in Victoria? In other words, is my stamp purchase paying for a normal delivery at 50c a time, or for some special ‘behind the scenes’ delivery method that perhaps costs Australia Post 5c??
Call me paranoid… But that looks like a stimulus package of Australia Post’s own, right there!
Over the past few weekends, I’ve been busy making stock for my Etsy store in preparation for the Christmas rush everyone says will happen. Also, there’s a local craft fair in our town on December 5 and I’ve put in for a table, so I need to make sure I have enough to fill it!
I had a day off work today, so I completed the last of the items, took photos, wrote descriptions, and loaded it all into Etsy. Some 20 new items (which translates to about 80 or so individual pieces) took me much of the day! 😦 But they’re up now.
New fabric coasters
New luggage tags
Recently added bookmarks
Since one of our local fabric stores closed a few weeks back ( 😦 ), I’ve had thread withdrawal! Enter the wonderful Michelle who came to our quilt retreat a couple of weekends ago, and who manages Handcrafter’s House in Midland, Western Australia. Not only has Michelle stepped in and filled the breach by getting me supplies, but she offered to get me a sample colour chart of Robison-Anton rayon threads. It arrived yesterday and it’s an absolute feast for the eyes! Here’s a taste:
I stayed at Rydge’s in Perth when I was in the city recently, and had dinner in their CBD Restaurant. Instead of a main course, I had two entrees (appetizers for my American readers) from their Spring Menu. Both dishes were vegetarian (not deliberate — I’m very much a carnivore!) and both were delicious.
My first entree was ‘Spring Pea and Spinach Soup, with Persian Feta and half a Baguette’ — it was VERY bright green set against the bright white shallow soup bowl, and very nice. The second was the ‘Fresh Green Asparagus, Twice-baked Gruyere Souffle, with Hollandaise Sauce’. It was also delicious, but it was lukewarm, so not as tasty as it would have been had it been served hot. I’m not sure if it was meant to be lukewarm — but I think hot would’ve been much nicer.
It was green, green, green and vegetarian all the way…
(If you want to see the colour of the spring pea soup, this is pretty close: http://www.merrimentdesign.com/rainy-day-green-pea-soup.php)
Wow! I went to Perth on Monday to do some training courses and drove for the first time on the new Perth to Bunbury highway, which opened just two weeks ago after a few years of construction. Pretty impressive!
The road is smooth, and fairly flat and straight. It’s wide (two lanes all the way plus a good paved shoulder), has a cycle path running alongside it all the way from Perth to Mandurah and quite some way beyond, has rumble strips on the sides, has a massively wide median suitable for a future train line (I have no idea if one is planned, but they’ve allowed plenty of room in case they want to put one down the middle of the highway), and has very wide shoulders to the fence lines with sufficient easement for widening to three or perhaps even four lanes each way in the future. It’s good to see that some thought has gone into projecting future needs beyond perhaps 20 years.
And this new highway cuts about 30 minutes off my drive to Perth — it now takes around 2.5 hours instead of 3 (assuming good weather, and no traffic or roadworks holdups). All those 20 or so traffic lights and the up and down speed limits around Mandurah are a thing of the past now — hooray! Coming home, it took exactly 90 minutes from the Narrows Bridge to the big roundabout at Bunbury.
My only complaint: The poxy speed limit. What’s with dropping the limit from 110 km/h to 100 km/h around the Mandurah exits and then all the way to Perth? This is a brilliant wide road, with no trees on the side, no chance of hitting oncoming traffic, few entrance and exit ramps, limited crossovers, and limited likelihood of hitting wildlife such as kangaroos.
There are plenty of 110 km/h roads in WA (South West Highway south of Bunbury for starters) that are FAR more dangerous than this new highway, yet the boffins decided to cut the speed limit to 100 km/h for the last 80 km or so into Perth. Crazy.
Well done to the construction crews, and well done to ‘Alannah the Planner’ for making sure this project happened. And well done to all those who realised that planning for the future now is not such a bad idea. It’s much harder to widen a road in 5, 10, or even 50 years time if the easements haven’t been secured.
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 