Seasons
Greetings to all our family and friends,
we hope the festive season is going well for you.
Mike first…
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
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!
Before. The wooden wall at the far
end separates the small kitchen
During. Several walls, the kitchen, and the support for the roof have all gone
After. The kitchen in all its glory.
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...
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.
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 being investiculed.
Mum, Granny and Sam are in the background.
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.
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