Friday, June 5, 2009

Donnybrook Apple Fun Park

Monday 1st June 2009
It is a public holiday today, Foundation Day apparently, although there is some concern over whether it should be called that as it was named by the great white settlers to commemorate the day they landed and the Aboriginals who had arrived here a couple of years before that feel that they should have chosen the name.
We remember this debate going on last year so assume that it is one of those things that rears its ugly head every year, just to remind us that the country should keep them in the lap of luxury for the errors of judgement that were made hundreds of years ago.
We remember having to listen to the same thing in the UK several times a year, some poor kiddy who had been reduced to a life of crime because his ancestors were forced into slavery a couple of hundred years ago, seeks compensation from the government, who incidentally don’t have anyone left in the Foreign Office who was around at the time who can support the story and point to who was to blame so that we can hang them out to dry.
Government answer, give them a bundle of cash and they’ll go away until they’ve spent it all and are reduced to crime again, then the government can give them some more.
It’s about time the governments of this world stood up for themselves, accepted although not apologise for the misdemeanours of previous governments, consign them to history and make sure we learn from those mistakes, throwing good money after bad and creating more upheaval in the process hasn’t got anyone anywhere for years so why should it start now.
We should start with a clean sheet, confine the past to the history books and let the Aboriginals choose the name of the next public holiday, the WA government must be due to introduce another new one soon.
We were up and about at a reasonable hour today and took a 150km round trip to Donnybrook for a cup of coffee, that is to say we had the coffee, the kids played for a couple of hours in Donnybrook Apple Funpark.
The Funpark was donated by a family who felt that the kids of Donnybrook should have more play equipment, it cost them about $750k to build but has transformed the area. Now shops that would have otherwise been closed on Sundays and Public Holidays, stay open and do a good trade, the play equipment gets a lot of wear and tear from the large numbers of kids that frequent it and families have a great day out there without it costing them an arm and a leg.
After the kids had finished playing, we bought some pies from a Bakers which was close by and ate them while sitting in the shade of the Bandstand next to the Train Station before heading back to Busselton.
We drove back to Busselton Foreshore where the kids had a scoot round on their Scooters and Rip-Sticks, we just sat in the sun with a coffee and an Ice Cream.
Late afternoon we went home, the kids went round the corner to play with their mates while Carolyn did some ironing and Ian carried on working on the new menu.
In the evening, after the kids had gone to bed, we watched in the Line of Fire with Clint Eastwood, who by the time he made this was being a tad over ambitious to think that he could still be a big hit in the Secret Service, he wasn’t bad but spoilt it with the love interest, a young Secret Service operative played by Renee Russo who was young enough to be his daughter.
He would have done better with a love interest from the Senior Service, and we don’t mean the Navy, although that could have been interesting, bet he’s never played that sort of part before.
All the same, it is a good easy to watch film, the sort of Film you don’t have to think about, it does however have just enough swearing in it for us not to let the kids watch it.

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