2001

Cathy. Well, here we go again, another year has rushed past and we're left reeling and wondering where it went!

We're still here in Canberra having achieved a personal record for staying in one place- it's over 3 years now and no sign of moving on - we must be getting old.

Mike is still happily working for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau- he'll tell you what he's been up to later.

I have been studying Human Nutrition at Canberra University part time this year and whilst I have enjoyed it immensely I wasn't looking forward to the further 4 years of full time study I needed to do to complete the undergraduate degree and then specialise in public health. However, I have recently discovered that I can do a nursing conversion course to get myself a nursing degree taking less than a year as the 3 units I have studied this year all count towards it. I can then go straight into the specialist nutrition subjects as a graduate taking another year, and then I'll be finished- cutting 2 years off my original plan. This is brilliant, and I am now waiting to find out if I have been able to transfer to the School of Nursing.

Sam, now 6 and 3/4 , has nearly completed his first year at school and is now thoroughly happy, although he found it quite hard to make friends at first. He is reading amazingly well and is developing his father's sense of humour and impeccable logic…aaaagh.  If he can intentionally misinterpret a situation he will, and he apparently surprised his teacher when asked to think of a number less than 8….. Sam's response was 'minus one million'- technically correct of course but not quite what she was expecting! She is retiring at the end of this year- I think it was all too much!

Abi, nearly 5, has had a lovely year at preschool and is growing up quickly. She is very ready for school and already joins in with their classes when I help with reading on Fridays. She's been borrowing books from the school and has progressed very well with her reading too. She no longer says 'eloprane' instead of aeroplane but is still very cute and knows just how to twist daddy around her little finger- Sam cries and gets angry when things don't go his way, Abi just smiles sweetly and asks for a cuddle!

We have been neglecting our long bike a bit this year, what with study and school and a few nasty bouts of sickness that knocked us all out over the winter to the extent that we were rarely all healthy enough to take it out. Hopefully we will ride more over the summer. We did go on a special ride to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Federation in May, and were filmed by a news team travelling along beside us. However, we didn't make the news, possibly because Sam kept shouting out  "what's that furry thing on top of your camera" in a very loud voice! (Referring to the boom microphone, of course).

We now have 5 chickens, Jo and Issie are our 'big' hens, however, Jo is the only one laying at the moment as Issie was struck down by a nasty bout of worms and is still recovering. We also have 3 chicks, Charlotte, Amelia and Henrietta, now 7 weeks old and fully feathered and just venturing out into the garden with the big hens for short periods. We nearly lost Amelia at 2 weeks when she cut her leg and it became infected. We took her to the vet and got antibiotics and she healed up beautifully, although her treatment cost 10 times her purchase price!

For several days whilst she was sick she had to be isolated from the other chicks as they were pecking at her wound. However, we discovered that chicks do not like to be left alone and when separated she would commence a plaintive cheep cheep CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP, getting louder and louder until she was picked up. We had to resort to carrying her in a sling around our necks where she sat quite happily and watched what was going on. She went with us on a Preschool excursion to a farm, and to the local shopping centre and was even 'chick sat' by our neighbours when we wanted to eat out on Mike's birthday!

It's been a fairly quiet year for visitors but my Mum & Dad came out in September / October bringing an amazing dolls house with them that Dad had built. It has been a huge success and is played with constantly, it is also the envy of all Sam & Abi’s friends, with its electric lights and rotating base. A huge amount of work went into it and poor Dad spent much of his time fixing little things that 'just came off in my hand Grandad!'

Mum & Dad had planned to come in April, but Dad developed angina and so they put it off for a few months until they knew he would be fit to travel. His symptoms are well controlled now although he has to take things a little more slowly and has cut down on some of his commitments, which is good.

Mike's parents, the Fossils are supposed to be visiting us in February, however, unfortunately, in October Jean was a passenger in a car that was hit head on by another car and she suffered a badly broken arm, severe bruising and back pain. She is still mending and has quite restricted movement in her arm. She and Dick are considering whether to postpone their visit for this reason and we should know soon what they have decided to do.

We are currently planning a visit back to the UK in July, it has to be fitted around University exams and terms so it's going to be a bit of a squeeze. I may try to persuade them to let me take exams early so that we can get away a week or 2 earlier, but I don't know how feasible that is yet. We would also like to stop over somewhere warm like Thailand for a week, probably on the way back to relax and expose the kids to a little bit of different culture.

Mike now. Another year has passed. It is a sign of a change to our normally peripatetic lifestyle that we don't have as many interesting or bizarre anecdotes from this year. We are getting to be a comfortably domestic family, living in suburbia, with two kids, an average of four chickens and nine litres of worms, (composting variety). We have been increasingly weaving ourselves into the fabric of Canberra society, having found them quite anally retentive when we first arrived. (to be fair, after the spontaneously friendly reception you always get in outback Australia, anywhere would seem anally retentive...).

The house over the road contains Catherine, (Mum), Hannah age 10 and 'little' Sam, age 5. Our kids now more or less see the two houses as mutually interchangeable, so far as somewhere to play, as do Hannah and Sam. A spontaneous 'thing' started earlier in the year, when Hannah said that she would like to cook for everyone. Now, almost every Sunday night at six, all the families, and usually a few extras, gather at the OzWattery for a large, simple, noisy meal with kids, mess, a couple of bottles of wine, and such like. The kids help too, making home brewed pasta, or ice cream, or just having good ideas.

I was invited to join a social volleyball team earlier in the year. We play once a week, and for the first 3 months didn't win a game. The second 3 months we didn't lose a game, and won the competition!. Such is life. It has been great fun, meeting people, and enjoying a game that is played for the fun of it, rather than seriously. I think that this is a part of the Aussie culture, because it's amazing how many people just play games for fun.

Work has had its ups and downs; the fuel contamination report went out in March, and went around the world to those who are interested in that kind of obscure thing. I had only got a couple of 'ordinary' accidents in, (a "spin-in" and a "cloud full of mountain"), when I got roped into another 'curly' investigation. Ansett had its aircraft grounded twice, and I'm looking at why this happened, on the basis that things shouldn't have gone that far in the first place. It isn't a thrilling job, but again it will have global ramifications.

On the strength of the fuel report, I was sent off to Vancouver and Seattle to talk to the international 'tin-kickers' convention a couple of months ago. I was due to fly out of Canberra at 5am on September 11. I got to the airport, and heard from a taxi driver that there had been a big air crash in America. Yippee, I thought, I'll get to visit a big accident while I am there. THEN I saw the news. I didn't go, as America was shut down. I tried to fly out again 2 days later, but this time, Ansett, my carrier went bankrupt 3 hours before my flight. Feeling a tad haunted, I got a flight out via Taipei on the Saturday, and I was on the last aircraft out of Taipei before the biggest typhoon hit for 500 years, killing 100 people in Taiwan. The flight out was a bit rough for the first half hour. Once I got Stateside, I had a ball; I flew to Canada and drove to the US, as it was the only way into America, but Canada is beautiful, and the Canadians are a very different beast from the Americans; much nicer to my way of thinking! I could easily imagine living there, even if it is so cold!!

I'm ashamed to say that the Land Rover has had nothing done to it, there is always something else to do. Maybe this will kickstart me into getting a head gasket set, and doing a few things on it.

Sam delights in soldering things. We will get a kit from a local electrical shop occasionally, and between us, we will make a crystal radio set, or a flashing star. Sam loves it; he has learnt that soldering irons are hot, and just managed not to cry when he burnt himself. He wants to try 'weldering' next. Heaven help me, I've created a monster: 'scrapheap challenge', here we come!!

We now have two canoes and a Mirror dinghy, obtained from the usual unorthodox sources: the kids have been sailing with Daddy a couple of times, but rowing and paddling gets Abi scared and Sam frustrated; they are much happier going out with Mummy or Daddy, but who knows as they grow up?

They have started swimming lessons as summer has come on, and for the past few weeks have been swimming in an outdoor pool on Thursday afternoons with a couple of startlingly attractive teachers. They swim more by beating the water into submission than by graceful gliding, but they can't be bested for enthusiasm! I'm sure it won't take long, and they both love it. Abi in particular has got over her fear of being splashed in the face, and is quite happy to play submarines.

Sam's arithmetic ability is leaping on. We did a half quantity reicipe a while ago, (Sunday evening bash), and he didn't even think about working out half of one and a half cups, he just did it!

Abi is becoming cuter by the day, and is practicing her wiles on Daddy, becoming a behavioural manipulator of renown, even if she does suck toes and blow raspberries on occasion! She dearly loves the doll's house they got from Brian, and is hardly happier than when she gets the chance to play with it without help from anyone else! Such domestic pleasure!

Cathy again. This Christmas will find us camping for 3 days about 3/4 hour out of Canberra in a State Forest campsite which is really pretty, with a small but very cold stream and lots of lovely bush tracks to explore. We will be joined by Catherine, Sam and Hannah for at least Christmas night and by Sue, another friend for Christmas day.

Mobile phones don't work there so we will be incommunicado from 24th to 26th. I'm not sure what we'll be eating yet but there will probably be a turkey of some kind and definitely some smoked salmon and croissants- we just have to work out how to cook them in the camp oven!

So have a wonderful Christmas, wherever you are and whatever you're doing and we hope to catch up with you in 2002.

Lots of love from

Cathy, Mike, Sam and Abi

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