I've previously written about our move to Dunedin from Auckland... well we are all really loving life down here... I like the people, geography, relaxed attitude and distinctive seasons.

Dunedin's weather is much better too, much less rain, with long hot dry summers and cooler weather where you get to wrap up snugly around open fires etc. All in all Dunedin is absolutely tops in my books. The Dunedin City Council must also like our enthusiasm for the place because... they've given us a spot on one of their websites... enjoy:

Dunedin – a sound choice for Perreaux Industries Ltd.

Here we go again... it's Christmas... please don't let the hype and ceremony get in the way, because for me, it's not about having the most lavish gifts, biggest leg of roast meat or finest laid table. For me Christmas is a time to kick back, relax with friends, family and think of others. In doing so, realising that maybe my problems and needs are not quite and big as I thought they were. It's also a time to enquire how others are getting on, get the neighbours over for a beer and a chat etc. I recall Christmases past when we were so busy running around to really appreciate the things that matter, like spending lots of time just hanging around catching up with family and appreciating for the smaller things. So do it... play cards, wash dishes together, tell stories, and most importantly... let your love for one another really shine...make it a special christmas...and come back to work in the new year feeling refreshed, relaxed, happy and rearing to go.

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Do you recall the VCR? I sure do, we still have one tucked away somewhere at home. It wasn’t that long ago that this was the standard. Now that DVD is king, my VCR tape collection tends to just sit around gathering dust.

The audio market is also undergoing a metamorphosis. Sales of CDs are in decline at the expense of downloadable music. The logic is simple, it is more convenient and purchasers don’t have to obtain an entire CD. Instead they can just select and pay for a single track.

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Open the newspaper, switch on your television and chances are you’ll find something on 'global warming'. According to a consensus of the majority of international climate scientists, global warming and its potentially catastrophic side effects is going to prove the biggest headache for mankind in the years ahead.

So where does carbon come into the equation. Vast quantities of carbon compounds are currently being created and released into the atmosphere through combustion. From the time of the industrial revolution onwards there has been an exponential increase in this activity.

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There are times when unfolding events can leave a deep impression.

For me it's an increasing awareness that there's something fundamentally wrong with the way civilization is heading. Forests and jungles are being clear-felled, land ripped up in search of minerals & water, and air polluted... All in what appears to be a frantic search for wealth.

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In November 1605, Guy Fawkes and group of conspirators made an attempt to blow up the British houses of parliament along with its ruling monarch, King James 1^st. By filling a cellar directly underneath Parliament buildings with 36 barrels of gunpowder, iron bars and firewood, Guy Fawkes audacious plot would have spelt certain death to King James 1^st had it not been uncovered in advance.

Theory has it that Roman Catholics were being persecuted under the rule of King James 1^st and if he was disposed of it would have acted as a catalyst causing an uprising amongst the Catholic faith to overthrow the ruling monarchy.

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“My father is rapidly approaching his 80th birthday. He’d mentioned several times this year that he would like to visit family in the Netherlands. Seeing as it had been a few years since my last trip, we thought that it might be nice if we could both go together. A date was selected and after a long trip with a brief stopover in Singapore we finally arrived at Shipol Airport in Amsterdam. There is something about traveling for 18,000km without sleep that you never really get used to. Still it is a far quicker process than when my father first traveled to New Zealand for 5 weeks on a sea freighter.

My father comes from what was a small coastal village in The Netherlands called Noordwijk aan Zee, which is situated between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. His recollections were as a boy running from his house over the road, down through the sand dunes to the beach, looking out for the return of the sailing fishing fleet. Still heavily jet lagged he dragged me along to the local fish supply shop to sample a local delicacy of freshly pickled raw herrings.

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New Zealand during the 50’s, 60’s was a great place to live as we were able to sell all the agricultural products we could produce to the United Kingdom. Life began to change rapidly when the UK joined the European Common Market. New Zealand no longer had unlimited access for its exports and the country began the painful transition to becoming a “market driven economy”.

www.stats.govt.nz/analytical-reports/looking-past-20th-century/trading/default.htm

The transition years were pretty tough, however more recently NZ has come of age and begun to regain its composure and confidence as an market driven open economy and once again able to hold it’s own.

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Oil and their derivatives are an extremely versatile group of products and an absolute necessity to the high living standards enjoyed today by most in the west.

When you begin to look deeper you’d be amazed at how oil and their derivatives have made their way into our everyday lives: clothing, insulation, paints, toothpaste, asphalt, packaging, shoes, fertilizers, vitamins, flooring covers and the list goes on.

So dependent have we become, that if supply suddenly dwindled or the price of oil doubled, society as we know it would simply collapse.

Here are a few sites worth looking at:

• http://www.wolfatthedoor.org.uk/
• http://www.oildepletion.org/roger/index.htm
• http://www.after-oil.co.uk/