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Perth, Australia

The day starts with a leisurely walk through the city of Perth, more rain falling and GOOD coffee (one thing they well here_. The city is beautiful, incredible buildings – old and modern together in a well desgined fit with one another. I stoll over to the convention centre for the afternoon session of the Research Forum and meet up with a bunch of friends from other parts of the world, as well as some of the CommonAge delegates from South Africa, Sr. Lucia and Femada from KZN. It is so exciting to see familiar faces and to know that they will also now have experienced the buzz of such a large conference. The Research Forum is disappointing, and I (trust me) stand up and say so. I get a few nasty looks, but afterwards a number of people come to me to say that they actually agree with my sentiments. I was under the impression that we were way beyond substituting robots and fake animals for people living with dementia, but it seems that there are a hard-core bunch of researchers who are trying their damndest to proof that it could work. At our table we have lively discussion of like-minded people agreeing on this point. The afternoon is ended off with a cocktail party at King’s Park with beautiful food and wine, lots of wonderful conversations and meeting new people. Day four: Believe it or not – the day starts with the confernce centre not getting breakfast out on time! 1000 very ****** off delegates swarm the little kiosk that cannot cope with the masses at all. I smile secretly – first world countries also get it wrong. The opening sessions are interesting – Robyn Stone, famous researcher opens the day with a session on staff retention, followed by the patron of ACSA, a retired judge who advocates wildly for gay people who need to go into Care Homes. Again, I don’t agree with the whole LGBTI (he adds Q for queers) notion. Why why why do we have to categorize people in this manner? It makes NO sense to me, and I strongly object to it. We advocate against this on grounds of race of ability, yet we are happy to categorize this very diverse group of people in one camp. In the afternoon I attend a heart warming play of short depictiions of life in a Care Home – brilliantly performed by four actors. The issues are exactly the same all over the world, they could have been from any Care Home in SA. The conversations are wonderful, especially spending quality time with gurus. There are so many truly inspiring people at a conference like this, it lifts the spirits and truly encourages. The afternoon plenary session is in my opinion again missing the point completely – a new home in Denmark that looks like a minimalist hotel with every possible gadget, where clearly no one consulted with the residents on what it is that they want. This is followed by an interesting discussion. The highlight of today is the presentation of the research award to our Sanet du Toit from Bloemfontein, who is on a three year fellowship in Sydney. Not only is it so exciting to see her here, but to be part of the acknowledgement of her work is a privilige. We have some drinks and snacks and then make off to a Tapas bar that Al Power knows. Another great evening of laughter, intelligent conversation, sillyness and lots of wine. New friends, old friends, reassuring that we are all in this for the right reasons. The Dutch contingent always makes for very stimulating conversation – we are indeed closely related. Diana, Freek and Ardt are such solid people who speak their minds, are critical thinkers and can appreciate the value of the industry, without being schmaltzy about it. Tomorrow is my presentation…

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