Careful with your pension, Terry - I've been getting about 96 quid a week UK pension since I applied 13 years ago (age 65). In April 2020 I received a letter completely out of the blue, saying, "From April 2021 we will no longer pay a dependent spouse supplement. You may need to discuss with your pension provider in Australia". That was it, full stop - and we were already stranded in Vietnam by then so wasn't able to discuss with anyone! I'll certainly follow it up if we can ever get back downunder because I'd accepted their offer to pay extra for a bigger spouse supplement, but hardly expecting a refund! If I ever hear a politician say, "Trust me", I'll die laughing!

No idea, Pam - but most likely related to the fact that Oz doesn't have a workable climate policy and he probably wanted to avoid embarrassment. The media constantly criticise Scumbag (my term of endearment for arrogant "smirk and mirrors" Oz PM) but I rarely read the small print about climate change because you just don't know who to believe anymore, and I'm v.hopeful we'll have a different gov't downunder soon, so whatever this one does won't matter for much longer. I don't necessarily think the opposition Labor party will do any better than the incumbent LNP, but from a selfish perspective we've got a much better chance of being recognised as Sunny's legal guardians with a Labor gov't (we have legal guardianship in VN but that's not automatically recognised elsewhere).

Yes, Tony was on my RRB crew in A Sqn, 2 Sigs before he left for 208 (from where I'd arrived). We never used cameras much in those days so not many photos around and I'm fairly sure I've already posted any I have - but will have a look through the galleries in coming months to make sure.

Yes, it was in an email, Lee (maybe even two!) - I remember because some of it was in red typeface!

Dunno about anyone else downunder, but we've had a six-fold increase in our electricity bill and 3-fold in gas and water - but none are price increases per se. The Oz welfare folk (Centrelink) said nothing to us but I discovered that they told all utilities that we've been overseas "long enough to get back" and therefore no longer entitled to our usual pensioner rebates! Not sure what criteria they use to decide how long is long enough, but obviously don't include the fact that the airfares are six times higher than pre-pandemic prices and we simply can't meet pre-flight conditions like being fully jabbed (the VN gov't can't afford to buy anywhere near enough vaccine for the 98 million population so rely largely on donations, which are few and far between - and foreigners are understandably not at the top of the list). And we're legal guardians for our niece (Minh Anh, aka Sunny) so can't leave without her - but she's not an Oz citizen and the highway between where we live in Vung Tau and the Oz Consulate visa office in Saigon is still closed down, as is the visa office itself! But even if they opened tomorrow it wouldn't help because Sunny is our niece and therefore not "immediate family" under Oz law and therefore doesn't qualify for a visa under the Oz border lockdown rules. Grrrrrrr............  Oops, think I might have gone off message somewhere - sorry about that!

I'd like to update my "208 Then & Now" (nothing major), so will email existing copy with edits marked sometime this weekend (hopefully!).  Not much we can add to Tony, Ocker, Bob, Doc, etc except the fact that they're dead (and maybe when they died, if known - I can't help with any of that, I'm afraid).

We have several facebook groups for expats here in our southern VN island city of Vung Tau (pop 400,000 except on weekends when half of Saigon comes here to swim), and the snowflake expats complain ad nauseum about "loss of civil liberties" because our lockdowns are started by police in loudspeaker vans everywhere (the kids love that bit!), followed by police foot patrols knocking on every individual door and getting the residents to sign an acknowledgement that they can't go out except to pick up the plastic bags of food that are left outside the apartment building or house every morning by the police and registered volunteers (penalties for breaching the rules range from 20million VND - about $1,000 - to 12 years, repeat 12 years, in jail!).
The "shippers", as the delivery people are called, are in great demand but not allowed to charge more than $1 on top of the cost of the food for each delivery. If you get sick, you have to call a doctor and wait - good luck with that!
But our "Directive 16" (very strict) lockdown was recently relaxed to Directive 128 (everything in VN has a number!), so we can go out now - although no more than 2 at a time. Restaurants can sell takeaway food, but bars, karaoke, etc are well and truly closed (which doesn't sit well with most expats, either!).
As far as I can tell, the only people who are handling things really well are the locals (of course - they probably think it's much easier than being at war against people with guns), and the Aussie Vietnam Vets (ex-soldiers) who help to deliver food parcels to the poor.
The other expats are mostly English-speaking school teachers, so they're fairly young and really should never have been allowed to leave home - they're mostly backpackers who've done a two-week TESOL course, so not "real" teachers at all, but you'd think they were all uni professors the way they carry on about their "loss of entitlements" (in VN, of all places!).
Think I'd better stop now before I start saying what I 'really' think!