As you read this we are
basking in an Australian summer. Xmas Day is forecast to be 36 degrees! It has
been anything but that over winter, the coldest winter in our 20 years here. We
didn’t come across the world for this much rain, we could have stayed in the
UK!!
Xmas 2016 will be very similar to the previous year, and
lots before that. A degustation day with Ruth, Richo and Katie, our
god-daughter. This year we have Mo and Steve with us, and a few other friends,
so the feast will start at midday and rock on late into the evening.
This will be followed by the Boxing Day test which will be
the Pakistanis this year. We hope they put up a better fight than the Windies
last year. Then it’s the Ashes again in 2017!
What a crazy world we live in. We have sat here in Oz
watching the Poms vote for Brexit and the US vote for Trump. Irrespective of
your views on each subject, both outcomes were a surprise that will lead to
uncertain times. Life has been much quieter here in Australia. The rugby and
cricket teams have been universally rubbish, and the Western Bulldogs winning
the Auzzie Rules – as big a surprise as Trump and Brexit.
For us it’s been a
year of saving for our new house. We signed the contract in Feb 2016 on a
Victorian terrace back in Parkville, just around the corner from our old place
(see above). But we don’t get possession until 31/3/17. Stuey went to an
auction back in Oct 2015. It went for stupid money – the real estate market has
gone bonkers in the last 2 years. So it looked like we had been priced out of
Parkville….until two neighbours approached the agent that day as asked him to
sell their places, via private sale. We were lucky enough to secure the one on
the photo. But as the people in the house hadn’t got a place to move to, they
needed a long settlement. So, possession on 31/3, house warming the following
day – April Fools Day! So coupled with Stuart’s mother, Nor, moving from
Poulton-le-Fylde back in to Manchester and Nic’s parents deciding it’s time to
down-size, we’re keeping the real estate industry in business. However Woody,
our one remaining cat is looking forward to returning to whence he came, over
16 years ago!
Just before Xmas we
nipped down to Cape Paterson for a week, just as we did last year. Australia
basically closes down on Xmas Eve – following that we have Xmas hols, the main
Summer hols and financial year end for many institutions. So December is manic,
trying to get things finished. So we run off to the coast.
Nicky has been working her many jobs with her newest career,
as a professional coach, going really well – though sadly not quite well enough
for Stuey to retire, but she is working on that. Her salaried jobs include a day
at the Kids Hospital, one in the MCRI, and time with the Royal College and the
Australian Dental Association. And if that wasn’t enough she has a long
distance appointment at Plymouth University which gives her a good reason to
make a couple of trips back to the UK each year.
Stuey did lots of
music, the first half of the year with Orchestra Victoria, the latter half with
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra plus a few trip to Tasmania. One of his highlights
was doing the Elephant in OV’s production of Carnival of the Animals. Please
note: Nicky made the costume – that girl guide badge was a sound investment all
those years ago!
In January Stuey will go to Devonport in Northern Tazzie to
coach the basses on a string camp, same as Jan 2016. It was knackering but
great fun, with 150 participants in four orchestras aged from 7 to 70!
The first of our visitors for the year was Stuey’s Dad,
Graham in Jan. We had a cricket net session with Charlotte, our friend who is
an elite cricketer, and plays for the Sydney Thunder in the womens Big Bash 20-20
league. We then caught up with Barbara and P, Jane and Graham then Esther and
Stephen. In addition to much eating, drinking and laughing, all were, or
course, taken to Woodlands Historic Park, to see kangaroos in the wild…
…as Stuey’s new obsession is wildlife photography. It’s all
Nicky’s fault as she bought him a ‘you-beaut’ 150-600mm tamron lens as a 25th
anniversary present in 2015. The lens soon outshone the camera, so a new Canon
EOS 80D ‘had to be bought’ in April
and 10,000 pictures have been snapped this year, many of them birds. The yellow
honeyeater was taken in Port Douglas on our holiday in June, was just one of
over 100 different species that we saw over the course of a few days (not that
it’s a competition of course!).
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