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 2005

Seasons Greetings to all our family and friends, we hope the festive season is going well for you.

 

Mike first…

We have been living up to our unusual lifestyle this year, making sure that our life never becomes boring. We have had some major episodes , which has made the past year all go in a bit of a blur..

Sam and Abi have changed enormously. Over the year they have grown physicially, cognitively, intellectually and socially; and their roles in the family's fabric have changed to reflect that growth


Sam at the start of the year

We started the year by taking our holidays seriously. We drove to Delicate Nobby, about 10 hours north on Christmas eve. This is a basic, doggy-friendly campsite, only 15 metres from the beach. Going before Christmas meant that we got a good campsite, which we shared with the Bouckaerts. Kate & Roo also joined us for a day or 2 before heading further North. We set up our normal comfy, heavy-duty campsite with tables, chairs, shade, boats, toys and oodles of food and drink.


Food time in our comfy campsite   Abi & Kate, doing what girls do best


Families on unicycles did create quite a distraction,  a lot of comment with local kids borrowing them for a lot of the time as they took turns hanging onto the van's roo-bar only to
fall off repeatedly.  The weather generally varied a little around excellent, with good sunshine, waves and water temperature to give ample opportunity to do beachy things, with many sandcastles & surfboards.

Wild kids..   Cool black chesspieces  


 Roo brought his surf ski which was enjoyed by many and, unlike mine, could actually be used without falling off. Sam and Koh (Bouckaert) found a tree covered in large insect exoskeletons, an promptly made them into a very alternative chess set.

We spent a week or so there, utterly oblivious for many days to the Tsunami, as we were so out of contact. Climbing trees, and toasting marshmallows, reading books, and doing little beyond cooking and relaxing: what a pleasure!

Abi &Erika doing something utterly important


Summer brought in the hot days in the mid 30s, leaving everyone sweltering. There were occasional trips for a picnic at the local lake back home, to play with boats, explore or simply to fall in and cool down, instead of having a Sunday supper. Suppers sometimes happened outside on balmy days, with the added benefit of not having to tidy up afterwards, with the ever-present chooks to help.

The kids chose different birthday party venues this year, with Abi taking friends to the ice skating rink, having never been there before,  and Sam going to the indoor rockwall to test adults and children alike.

My first main challenge really started the year before. I have been hankering after the idea of some more education, but I didn't know what. I was offered a scholarship to do an eMPA,  a Masters of public administration. I'd been thinking of an MBA,  and this was the functional equivalent for public servants.  It is actually 20% more than a full time masters course, on top of full time work, but it is hugely interesting, as I'm not absorbing so much new information, but more learning methods to analyse it, and justifying position that I may choose to take on the basis of that information. My life has changed dramatically since starting this course. Mainly, I had no spare time any more: as soon as I got home, my nose was applied to the grindstone for several hours work until I was too tired, and I might get one afternoon free at the weekend if I was lucky. There has always been bucketfuls of reading, assignments to do, week-long courses to attend, and the like. I have been tremendously lucky in that both Cathy and the kids have supported me, giving me reasonably distraction-free peace and quiet, and taking over mowing the lawn, peeling the potatoes, and the like. It has been tremendously absorbing, but I fantasise qabout being bored again, one day..

Our home, Bundey Street in Higgins, has been a great place, but we have evolved into a position where it would be better to 'move up' for a number of reasons, but largely to plan for saving more efficiently ( a truly scary indication of looming age!) We weren't actively looking to move, but we have been keeping our eyes open.for a couple of years. One of those 'fantasy homes' came up for sale around Easter: the kind of place you may quietly dream about, but in the confident expectation that it could only ever remain but a dream.  We were further lucky in that a slight fall in the housing market reduced the price to within our range. We went to look at an 'open home'. The kids were ambivalent  because they would miss friends, and I was called away to go to an accident during the visit, so we all ran out of the house a couple of minutes later in front of a very bemused estate agent!  We bought the house, and moved in on 7July,  expecting the task to be bigger  than our wildest imaginations, and spectacularly suceeding in  those expectations.  We had packed and moved over 100  full sized removal boxes before the removalists even came,  and it kept on getting bigger. The house is an old (by Australian standards) inner-city bush block. We are a 12 minute pushbike ride from the city centre, with  a 100 metre long block of land, flat at the front, but then rising steeply up a hill further back, with the large, rambly house on it. There are over 30 full grown trees too.  Getting the garden under control has tasken huge amounts of labour, but it's improving, though I am convinced that it will remain a never ending task because  the weeds go bananas as soon as you blink!

Cathy: One of the reasons the weeds have gone crazy is that our 3 year drought has finally broken and we have had fabulous rain with our local Dam capacity now sitting at 67%, up from 43% in July.-fabulous! We have a huge raspberry patch and are picking 1/2 kilo of raspberries a day at the moment-mmmm, there are also some other fruit trees in the garden: cherries, which the birds  ate as soon as as the slightest pink tinge appeared on them, peaches, possibly apricots and/or nectarines as well- we're waiting to find out, and a grape vine shading a pergola outside our living room. We have also put in a couple of passionfruits to grow up and over the chook fence and shed. We have kept the children at the same primary school to ease the transition, but we are now in the catchment area for a high school with a fabulous reputation- so that was another good reason to make the move.

Mike: While the new house had been generally  well maintained, there  were some bits  that needed changing. The was no heating beyond electric bar heaters that were brutally expensive.  The kitchen and main living area were '60s wooden', and there was no ceiling insulation on the pitched roof.  We had planned for an immediate renovation, and started straight away.  It is now done, and we have a house  that is temperature controlled, with roof insulation and a fabulous kitchen.  We went  a bit unorthodox with the cooker, and bought  one on eBay! We also have a complete flat to tempt visitors to come, and we have been inundated with guests over the past few months. This has been good, as people have been doing a lot to help.  Clare & Pedro arrived after doing an air safari with Gail in WA,  The Rushworths and the Potts blew through, Brian and Margaret stayed for a while on their global tour, doing marvellous things helping with the renovations, which I'm sure was the reason they flew half way round the world... I was so grateful  for a lifetime's electronic experience to help make our burglar alarm work again! 


dining room, separate kitchen behind

Before. The wooden wall at the far end separates the small kitchen

Look, all gone!

During. Several walls, the kitchen, and the support for the roof have all gone


Insulation, ceiling, new everything

After. The kitchen in all its glory.

Looking out  from the main window

And a living room that is bright , and no longer full of timber.


Cathy: They also painted the ceiling and repaired the Doll's House and Mum took over the kitchen and children while I was working which was fabulousThe flat needs a lot of work - one of the rooms has been christened 'the condemned cell' it's so dingy but once the main house is finished we have plans to start on the flat!

Mike: Mum has only just left from a 3 week trip, where she simply stayed  with  the family, and joined in with whatever we were doing. She was in her element  with a massive wild, overgrown  garden to tame,  and was sometimes  heard muttering 'Kill, kill...'  as she headed gardenwards with  saw, secateurs or weedkiller in  hand. We dumped awesome volumes of garden waste, including several respectably sized trees, tidied under Mum's ruthlessly effective hand, and transformed large tracts of garden.

There are more animals in our lives now. We have resisted the temptation for a dog, despite a daughter's eternal entreaties. We arrived with 7 chickens, but tragically  found about the existence of foxes in the area before Cathy could rescue 3 that were taken.  We now have a fox-proof chook-house with a steel mesh floor that they can't dig through, and my pride is a computer controlled, light sensitive motorised sliding door that keeps them safe at night; the result of several days' work and innovation with some expert help, I admit! We got two more chicks about a month ago to re-stock, that are being hand-reared, and are just now starting to live outside. Abi was mortified that we have christened them 'Icarus' and 'Backflush' .She prefers something more conventional heroic and respectable names, but  only got christening rights on one; I got the other!  Cathy: Fossil became quite clucky over the chicks (excuse the pun) and on one occasion was caught letting them feed from her plate at the table- I'm sure her children were never allowed to do that! We are currently trying to train them to go into the shed to sleep at night- it's a bit of a battle,  one almost got decapitated by the automatic door last night as it tried to duck out again just as it was closing.

Mike: We also brought 2 guinea pigs with us, and soon found that they were so much happier when they were allowed to roam free from their hutch. They also provide an excellent lawn mowing service in those hard-to-get places. One guinea pig disappeared, but the other one did so well from an unlimited supply of succulent grass to eat, that she has been re-named from 'Choc chip' to 'Choc chunk' owing to the expanding breadth across her beam. She now has two more guinea pigs with her ('Patchwork' and 'Bogbrush': same christening rights) and we now have a happy herd of 3 wild guineas a-roaming in the back garden.


Wild Guinea pigs, with a lawn to eat.

Wild guinea pigs...

Cathy: They are fabulous most of the time, but I have  just had to fence off the Dwarf beans as the guinea pigs have decided they are as delicious as the weeds and grass!

Mike: Mice: a mixed experience. The two 'females' soon produced a litter and we are just getting the genders under control,  and returning the males to the pet  shop. Everyone has been impressed at what busy little breeders they can be, given half a chance; just minutes from birth to reconception! They are surprisingly cute nevertheless, but  the males are awesomely aromatic, rendering their part of the house quite uninhabitable.

The natural environment also means that we have many wild parrots, parakeets and cockatoos, so it is well worth providing daily birdseed to keep them visiting and providing constant delight. This now means that every morning the 'clucky birds', the 'tweety birds',  guinea pigs and mice all have to be fed and looked after, quite a self discipline and rigmarole!!

We had a huge scare at the end of August.  I had a spontaneous brain bleed out of the blue, and rapidly went downhill until it was a lot more go than touch. The whole family had ten days of pure Hell, primarily because no one knew how bad it would be, or how (or if) I might ever recover.  While I was very unlucky to have this in the first place, I have been even more outrageously lucky in my recovery. I have recovered, with my family intact, and even closer than before, with quite insignificant problems remaining. There was a folorn hope that my sense of humour might improve but we were not to blessed with that particular silver lining for my cloud. Life is largely returning to normal, but it has led to intense reflections by many on what really matters to those you love, which makes up your life. Just a few days before Christmas I got the results from an angiogram that was intended to find out what created the problem in the first place. They found the problem, but inadvertently fixed it when treating me. This means that a relapse is very unlikely indeed; I am no worse off than a 'normal' member of society,  To call this truly fantastic news would be a bit of an understatement! We have been quite overwhelmed with the thoughts, prayers from many people, denominations and continents, and genuine, significant and spontaneous offers of any kind of help from so many. Help was there when we needed it, and we are so grateful to everyone who offered so generously. 'Nuff said. If you want to know more of the yucky bits, just ask, I'm happy to extol.

1000 origami Cranes. A gift and a prayer for recovery from serious illness

Our Japanese friend Sanae produced this incredible gift, the result of several weeks' work..  It is 1000 origami cranes; an extraordinary  act of thoughtful kindness. See here for the background behind this gift. It is hard to describe the support and help that I have received in so many large and small ways. To just say 'Thank you' sounds so trite and insignificant.

Cathy  - We are all now breathing a huge sigh of relief that we seem to have come through the last few months with a future again for us as a family - I cannot approach how scary and stressful this episode was, particularly the first 2 weeks. Clare and Pedro need a special thankyou - having abandoned their long planned WA holiday to fly over to help - it was such a relief to have them here with us during the worst weeks.  Mike refers to his lucky recovery - however, as you may imagine his motivation to get better was huge and he has worked exraordinarily hard at his rehabilitation - confounding all the experts and ignoring their 'average' recovery times.  He is now driving again and on an (enforced) graduated return to work, expecting to be back full time by April. The extra leisure time he has is being well spent attacking the garden, painting ceilings and building electronic chook doors - so much for 'rest and recouperation'!

Mike-The kids improved slowly but steadily on their piano, quite reasonable considering so much other distractions to their life. They changed piano teacher when she emigrated to Manchester (of Course...) with a great fellow who did jazz stuff, but one day he simply disappeared, and the piano has languished. We must  do something about it!! Conversely, Sam has taken up the Alto Sax, and Abi the Clarinet, and once they had got control over their reeds, I'm convinced that their piano knowledge has helped them, as they have a natural ear, and they know what they're doing.

Cathy
Having made the move to a new area we wanted the kids to get to know some of the local children, Abi was keen to go along to Cubs and we persuaded Sam to reluctantly go along to a first Scout meeting. Both enjoyed it, but Sam was particularly taken with Scouts and 'all the badges you can get'. He is keen to go to the Australian Scout Jamboree in 2007 so is trying to think of ways to raise money. He's going on a coast camp at the end of January for 5 days - the first time he will have been away from the family for more than a night - so it's a big deal. It's a friendly local group and has helped the kids to settle better into the new area, particularly since none of our imediate neighbours have children and we've lost the close play network we had at Bundey St.

Abi's investiture, Cathy, Sam, Jean behind.


 Abi being investiculed. Mum, Granny  and Sam are in the background.

We are continuing to attend the Unicycling club and recently the ACT held the Brindabella Challenge - a mixed bicycle event  involving just about any activity you can do on human powered wheel/s. The hotshot Sydney Unicycle Hockey team (all adults) came down to Canberra to play our 'scraped together at the last minute' ACT Unicycle Hockey Team which included anyone who was available to play on the day and was mostly made up of 10-13 year olds . Sam was persuaded to play and had great fun, even managed to block a few goals- we only lost 10:2! Because there were only 2 teams playing, the ACT came second  and team members were awarded medals- so Sam can truthfully say that he represented the ACT  in Unicycle Hockey and they are the second best team in Australia (There aren't any teams outside Sydney!!).

Abi entered the school talent quest this year, having put together a fabulous clown act, involving a unicycle. She really has a natural talent for comedy and wowed the whole school, taking out the 'best comedy act' catagory. She now has a little fan club of year 1 girls who follow her around and tell her how wonderful she is. She also performed the same act in the unicycle freestyle section of the Brindabella Challenge. She has blossomed this year, having had a hearing assistance teacher work with her twice a week at school . Her confidence has grown significantly and she has also made more friends this year.

Both children are looking forward to a good school year next year as they have both been allocated really good teachers.

My life has been relatively quiet- I am still working 25 hours a week as policy and project support for the Director of Allied Health in Community Health. The job is still not where I want to be long term but the hours are fab so I have the dilemma of  not wanting to move on unless I can get the same flexibility in my hours. At the moment I work 5 extra hours a week and flex these off during school holidays and to do other things as needed.  I work fairly independently and have free reign in how I do most things, so I'm happy for a while.


Housetraining a chick...Oops.    Cathy on holiday


'testing' strawberry ice cream

   




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