How a lockdown birthday felt for fabulous Val

Lockdown Life: Val Barnwell celebrated her 90th birthday with a smile, despite the restrictions around the COVID-19 pandemic.

Merewether's Val Barnwell has just turned 90.

Val tells Topics she's feeling "pretty good about it".

"I've achieved a fair bit and have a lovely family. I've enjoyed life immensely," she said, adding with a chuckle that she's hoping for a few more years.

Val has found the lockdown "a bit frustrating", but says her family has been "doing all the shopping, looking after me and keeping tabs on me".

She'd been passing time by reading.

"I'm a reader from way back, since I was about 17. My dad and I were bookworms. That carries me on. It's been helping me through this whole thing," she said.

She's also been walking laps around a nearby oval with daughter Sue Michaelson.

Sue told Topics that the family had a high tea for Val on her birthday on Thursday.

Family and friends visited in staggered times, with a maximum of two at a time while maintaining social distancing.

"Omg [oh my god] - how things have changed in those 90 years, especially considering what is happening at the moment," Sue said.

Ain't that the truth.

Victory or Vaccine

Paul Harrison noted that a ship called Corona Victory was in the Port of Newcastle this week.

"I'm sure under the current circumstances this is a great omen for the whole of Newcastle - a well-earned outcome for us all. Corona victory at last," he said.

We like Paul's optimism, but we're looking forward to the day the Corona Vaccine sails into the harbour.

The Russian Herald

Charlestown's Anna Adnum was looking at the crossword and puzzle pages in the Newcastle Herald on Monday.

She noticed a task that asked readers to "find identical beetles".

The instructions were described in English. But oddly, they were also described in Russian.

Given that Anna is Ukrainian, she noticed the writing. The Ukrainian and Russian languages have similar words.

"I couldn't believe it, at first I thought it was Ukrainian writing. I couldn't work out why it would be in Russian," Anna said.

The only answer we can think of is that Vladmir Putin's propagandists are trying to infiltrate the Australian [puzzle] press.

Chicken and the Egg

Speaking of puzzles, Charlestown's Laurie Bowman responded to our musings on whether the chicken or the egg came first.

"I think you have to go back a lot further, as science tells us that all birds descended from dinosaurs," Laurie said.

"And then, as demonstrated on ABC Catalyst this week, all life came from outer space," Laurie said.

Topics: "So we're all space cadets."

Laurie: "Scientifically, apparently."

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