My Journal:

January 2009

Another New Year! I don't have any resolutions but I do make plans at the beginning of a new year, although they are never written in stone. 2008 was a very boring year - apart from a couple of short trips I didn't travel anywhere. During 2009 I aim to travel up north, as far as Cairns, and down south, as far as Melbourne Philip Island. Both of these trips will be by car but I also may squeeze in a flight to Perth, but that will depend on my youngest daughter and her husband. They have just sold their home in South East Queensland, bought a troop carrier and a van, and are off on the harvest trail; first stop either Victoria or South Australia. When they get to WA I'll fly over to Perth to visit with them.

On the home front, we have had some rain, which has greened everything up but we'll need a lot of follow up rain throughout this year before we can say this drought has ended. I say 'this' drought because, as Australians will know but others may not, there's nothing surer than that there will be another drought somewhere down the track. My garden has surprised me with some blooms I've never seen before; I put this down to the good rain. I'll post a few pictures to the album. (If you want to view 'the wall' you will need to download this program; it's free and instead of a boring page of pictures, you'll discover a wall of photos that will move as you move your cursor. If you don't want to bother with this, you can still view the pictures in the album.)

Last year one of my brothers came to stay with me. I can no longer manage all the heavy work that this acreage needs so he does all the hard yakka. I moved my computer into the house and he lives in the studio; we are currently in the process of adding an ensuite to this so he can be self-contained. We're also installing a water treatment plant, which will process all the waste from the house (kitchen, bathrooms, laundry, toilets) for the gardens. It's a monstrous tank which needed a 2.3metre hole dug. The machine my brother used got half-way down before it struck sandstone. A larger machine had to be brought in to chop this out. We should have just opened a quarry! The sandstone looks good in my gardens though. Building was suspended over the end of year break but we'll soon be back into it.

Early in 2008 I began to teach English at TRAMS (Toowoomba Refugee and Migrant Service) on a volunteer basis. I expect that this will continue in 2009. I also enrolled at the University of the 3rd Age, where I began an advanced course in the Italian Language. I hope to continue this also in 2009. I've given myself a break over the festive season but now it's back to work. I didn't do much writing last year, somehow I lost the urge. I did enter one competition and received a second prize and a commended, but that was it. This year I aim to get back into blogging and writing more articles for helium.com.