Off to England

On Thursday Niki and I will fly to London, where Niki´s parents, Peter and Ann, will pick us up and take us to their home in Polebrook, Northampstonshire, a small village surrounded by patchy fields of green.

We will stay with them until Niki and I go to the IATEFL conference on Monday. The conference is in Harrogate, on the East Coast. The conference is attended by 1800 or so English teachers and lots of publishers who may give us work in the future...

New widgets!

For those of you who have become addicted to the widgets (to the what?) in the left column of this blog, there are two new ones: one is a Trivia Quiz. Add your age and hit play! (And, depending on your computer screen size (and age ...) put your reading glasses on... Also, there is a Quotes widget with lots of wisdom and useful insights ... (I think). Enjoy!

Swim and Park

On Sunday, after trying to sleep as long as I could (managed till 5 o´clock in the morning...). I managed to ´get hold´of Tess and Yarrow and Niki and I chatted with them for a bit on Skype.

After breakfast, Niki and I went for a swim in a public pool in Lisbon, where I managed to up my laps record to 46 (calculated against Pearces Creek pool length :)! This refreshing and reinvigorating experience called for lunch on a sunny pavement cafe close by where we were, like all other customers, hassled by insistent beggars...

On the way Niki managed to confuse an old lady in pajamas ans a huge hairnet who leaned out of her kitchen window showing us a huge kitchen clock, and politely inquired what the time was - had it not been a Daylight Savings changeover day, the whole situation would have looked quite surreal and almost Dickensian. Daylight Savings confuses people everywhere, doesn´t it, and it kicked in in Portugal yesterday.

Nice meal and a sit-down though, and then to a Park in the area of Lumiar where we dozed and read on the grass in the early Spring sunshine - the Park was quite big and reminded me a lot of the Amsterdamse Bos, a haven for city dwellers to come for a quiet Sunday. A lovely, restful place to come back to over the next few Spring months.

And here we are...

32 hours later, and out I come on the other end, having winged my way via Sydney, Singapore and London, this time without long transit waits in between; having enjoyed surprisingly delicious Asian vegetarian meals on board (two advantages: the vegetarian food is delish and you get served first, way ahead of other passengers!), having watched three movies (It´s complicated, with Meryl Streep; the new Sherlock Holmes movie; and the SF epic 2010) and having surprisingly been troublelessly flown (despite industrial action) from London to Lisbon by British Airways.

Niki was waiting for me on tuther side, with a beautiful smile and a gorgeous rose, to welcome me - well I think I may share that she ran and jumped on top of me... I´m sure onlooking passengers will have smiled indulgently at these two people who (obviously) had not seen each other for a while...

So, now settled in Povoa St Adriao again and woken up at quarter to five in the morning (after zonking around eight last night). Fortunately, day light savings is kicking in (or out, can´t remember) today, so it´s actually quarter to six.

I hope all are and is well on the Down Under side. Niki tells me she chatted with Tess earlier that day and got the impression that both Tess and Yarrow were doing OK. I´ll talk to you soon, my loves.

Pop Quiz
Which flying machine did I take to fly to Europe?

And off we go...

26 March 2010 ... 1 year and 2 months ... I´m off to be reunited with my love in Lisboa. Tess, Yarrow, Ton, Ellen and Mieke were so kind as to wave me off. Thank you, all - twas very pleasant and mightily appreciated. I´ll clock in again when on tuther side. I get to fly in the big 308 plane, from Singapore even on the top deck. According to the very kind check-in lady it´s as quiet as a mouse, so who knows I might not even need my noise-canceling headphones!

Golden voice

Yarrow is hoping to enter for a voice development workshop in June. She was part of that two years ago and now she´s trying to enter again. This means that her school nominates her and she needs to send in a song on DVD. Just before I left we recorded this song (Sound of White, by 23-year old Australian singer songwriter Missy Higgins) and, well, can I say more - can a dad´s proud heart overflow with pride and awe? Hm, yes it can... definitely... If you can, play this video through a set of good loudspeakers to get the full benefit of this golden voice... She starts off softly and, after a bit more than a minute, lets rip... (I promised Yarrow that this would only appear on this blog, for our small little group of enthusiasts, so please no links to Youtube or anywhere else!)

Welcome

The Welcome Swallows are back! Always a nice sign of the season (autumn), they nest above the front door (and another pair on the back deck) and busily go about their flitting business of nesting and raising their annual family.

The galahs, a type of parrot (yes, as in the proverbial Aussie expression You´re talking like a b****y Galah), who live in big families, have also returned and are doing exactly the same thing - there´s a big flock of about 30 resident on my property and they do make a bit of a racket.

And this morning, as I was doing my customary laps in the pool (up to 30 now!), I observed a big flock of Ibises flying into the valley and slowly circling down and landing (really, they do land like a plane ...) in one of our paddocks to do what looked ostensibly like grazing.

I haven´t seen the Rainbow Lorikeets yet, but I´m sure they´re not far off and will start nesting in the fence posts around the property. Yarrow was just saying the other night as we were looking out over the valley that we have lots of birds here, and we do - a pleasure to see and so nice they´re not in cages...









A beautiful Rainbow Lorikeet , a Galah and Ibises.

Another voyage

And another voyage is coming up - my love and I will be reunited soon, after a long too long absence, and time will no longer separate us.

As always, traveling towards somebody implies traveling away from others. As much as it has been within my power, I´ve prepared Tess and Yarrow, with the help of many (Mieke, John, Ongel, Grandpa, Niki) for the next few months, after which Niki and I will travel back to Australia together, to arrive on Yarrow´s birthday! (Can´t promise a cake, but we´ll happily be the candles...)

Tonight I gave the girls a survival kit, hoping it will help them (and me!) to deal with no doubt difficult moments of absence... We´ve set a time during the week (Wednesdays between 5 and 7 Australian time) to see each other on Skype, just to ensure that there is at least one time during the week when we can ´meet´, and as often outside that time as necessary or desirable of course!

The survival kit includes:

1. a card with a special message of love, dedication and support telling them how proud of them I am for journeying with us (and including mysterious letters from themselves to their future thirty-something selves and, lo, a letter back from their future 30-something selves to themselves... amazing!);
2. a golden-coloured Honey Jade precious stone to keep in their pockets, to hold and touch;
3. a pocket book covered in a facsimile of a silk print, which I´m asking them to write a thought in every day - any thought, poetic or practical, down-to-earth or inspired, a quote or an original thought: anything to mark the passage of time and the experiences they go through. Tess has already entered her first thought!
   
4. a 2010 calendar with puppies on for Yarrow and kittens on for Tess, in which I have written all the movements Niki and I will be making over the next few months and, especially, when we shall be back in Australia, comings, goings, dates, trips, conferences, visits as well as their birthdays and we´ll add days of festivity and celebration as we go along. They can hang their calendar in their room at the Grange and look at the cute dogs and cats at the same time...;
   
5. a big fat book each from the Vampire Nook in the bookshop in town, which I think both of them immediately delved into ...
   

On top of that, I´ve given Tess and Yarrow, as well as Anjes, access to this blog so they can post their own stories, photos, music and videos about The(ir) Journey if they want to. No pressure, no obligation, but it makes the blog a bit more than just my thoughts and ponderings.

Finally, because these two possums are such avid readers, I´ve given them the opportunity to buy a new book every week (I mean, one book won´t take them a week because they often read more, but it´s the thought that counts :), to keep on wiling away their time at their leisure, and for the benefit of their imagination and pleasure in reading.

Allons-y! OK, that´s French, not Portuguese, nor English, but hey - I´m sure they´ll understand...

Cirque

I keep repeating it´s an absolute joy to see Tess and Yarrow perform their circus tricks twice a week at the circus school. Their routines are getting more and more complicated and more and more I realise how skillful what they do is. Unfortunately, I need to go and see the osteopath with Tess as an old back injury (from when she fell out of the fig tree years ago) seems to be playing up again.

Now, did I hear Niki say that she might want to give The Silks a try as well once we go Down Under....?

Lounge

Today saw Yarrow and me spending the afternoon together - Yarrow keen to finish her mowing of the lawns. We ended up lounging in the pool having chats while we bobbed around and cleaned the pool. It was a lovely sunny day with a slight breeze coming in from the ocean. A far cry from Northern Queensland where people are preparing for a hurricane and battening down the hatches. Promise, Duchess and Samson took the opportunity to munch away on freshly mown grass that had blown into their paddocks from under the fences. Oh, and we admired the pumpkins that are starting to grow!

Organic

I love the look of organic pieces of furniture, such as the mirror I bought at the Bangalow market a few weeks ago, which got hung today in our bedroom ensuite. I love the irregular shape, the rounded edges, the feel of the wood, the size, the weight. Beautiful! And the good thing is, here in Australia the camphor laurel, of which the wood derives, is considered a weed! So I´m doing the country a favour!

Coco and ....

Meet Coco and Chanel ... Anjes´chinchilla pets. Aren´t they cute?

Running behind...

And all of a sudden a week has passed, and I´ve run behind blogging... My true and loyal fans ... here is an update. What happened since last time I roamed the blogosphere?

1 The pest people came and dug a trench around the house to install a pipe system which they then fill with poison to keep them little white critters out (see earlier posts). Also they renewed the barrier around the cottage, where the problem started, so this can now be fixed up and then rented out again.

2 On the weekend Tess, Yarrow and I went to The Square, one of the local shopping centres in Lismore, where we ´hung out´and I had a chai latte, on Tess´advice, because she apparently loves those. Tastes slightly better than Starbucks Chai, so give me real Chai tea any day, but it was, erm, an experience. Of course Tess and Yarrow had to walk ´a round´ through the mall, just to be seen by their friends who were also hanging out there ...

3 On Sunday, we drove to Byron but ended up at the Urban cafe in Bangalow, had chais and HUGE pieces of chocolate mud cake (which were taken home in doggy boxes - yes, one step up from doggy bags) and consumed over the next few days...




We then also went to the Park in Bangalow and played in the playground and threw sticks for Chicco who loved running around and taking a plunge in the Weir. (I know, a sign did say it wasn´t allowed, but hey, how to stop a dog who is dying to immerse herself...)

4 On our way back we stopped off in Lismore to drop a one-night video off, and we ended up in the Lismore Roller-skating Rink - a slightly garish, dilapidated place but very popular among Rollers, where Tess and Yarrow skated to their hearts´content to awful music videos, did the Limbo (unfortunately Yarrow didn´t win this time, after, literally, years of consecutive wins!), fell over, bashed into each other and other people and, generally, had a whale of a time - and this included the rather artificial-looking ice smoothies (very strange colours red and blue) and, well let´s admit it, not very nice chips. But I guess the not-very-nice-chips are all part of the experience!

Dance!

I couldn´t keep this wonderful video clip from you. It´s staged, yes, but hey it brought tears to my eyes when I saw it - don´t we all sometimes want to spontaneously be part of such happy, worry-free group dynamics, and be surprised by total immersion in something completely unexpected! Just look at the faces of the passers-by! This all took place in the main hall of Antwerp central station.

Have a shower (soon)

For those who have been following the building of the bathroom in Anjes´room, here´s an update. Walls have gone up, shower is now tiled; I believe the toilet and cistern are being ´sources´today as well as architraves and other bells and whistles to enable the finishing touches and to prepare the walls for gipping (good old Aussie term) and painting. The floorman came yesterday and helped decide on a timber floor finish. It´s all starting to look like something, even though the whole space will probably keep looking like a building site for a while longer...

Hole in the wall

Something really strange happened this morning, in my house. All of a sudden I became the proud owner of a hole in the wall. Mind you, this hole in the wall doesn´t hand out money when I want it, but it takes money from me ... Weird phenomenon. It all became clearer when not ´alf an hour later the hole was filled with a window...

The epitome of ...

Many a time Niki assures me that, as a male, one can´t (shouldn´t?) really venture out into the big wide world with a pair of board shorts in combination with socks and shoes underneath. (Especially after seeing me dress like that the other day (chuckle here). I´ve tried to culturally enlighten my love (not trying to convince her because I generally don´t dress that way, but breaking a lance for good ´ole Aussie culture - note the not-capital c there) by pointing out that this is how a large contingent of men in Australia actually go through life ... at any time of the year, and from any walk of life. So, I just couldn´t resist filming a little scene that unfolded before me the other day: this short clip is of a dancing lesson that was taking place at the Byron Entertainment Centre, where Tess and Yarrow have circus. It was all taking place right next to me. The man in the middle is the American owner of the Entertainment Center (so I guess he´d be well off) where the circus is housed ... Look for him and his clothes ...

Timeline ...

Time flies, they say. Tempus fugit. Oftentimes my love and I tell tempus to movit. And movit it has done for the past year and a bit. It´s been a veritable roller coaster ride, erm, flight ... Here´s where it started, where it went and where it´s going ... On top of the time line are the dates I arrived in Portugal to be with Niki, at the bottom the dates I left to go back to Australia to be with Tess and Yarrow and family; the orange dates are the period of time that Niki spent in Australia; the red dates are milestones - on the left is The Beginning and, erm, on the right The Beginning... Click the image to see the time line.

Chess

A beautiful Sunday, sunny, warm, with a cool wind blowing in the afternoon. Tess was off to Dreamworld or Movieworld or Somesuchworld up the Coast with a few friends and Yarrow joined Ton and Ellen for the Lismore Carboot Market, which they (almost religiously) go to every time it is on.

At lunchtime Yarrow, Ton, Ellen and I met at the Eltham Valley Pantry which is a cafe in the middle of a Pecan farm, ´just down the road´. Yarrow had bought me a present on the market, knowing I have a penchant for chess sets, and part of the time we spent leisurely playing a game of chess ... Since neither of us really know what we are doing, it was even more enjoyable. The fact that my Queen at some stage managed to take her King was, well let´s face it, much more a stroke of luck for me than strategy... I mean, the way we play the game is that we tell each other what moves we might be taking, retract moves if we suddenly decide it wasn´t such a good idea after all and sometimes decide not to take a piece, even though we can, in the interest of the game...

Swim...

In a flurry of optimism I decided last week to go for a daily ten-lap swim every morning (and possibly evening). Only takes ten minutes to do, and perhaps I can extend the number as I go along. As a was floating up and down this morning, the mist was quietly lying on the hill tops around me, promising perhaps a less humid and rainy day than the weeks before now. The only audible sound were the currawongs in the trees and the murmur of the water as my body floated from one end of the pool to the next. Duchess and Promise were enjoying their own morning ritual, scratching each others necks in the loving but anatomically awkward embrace this requires. I noticed the grass around the pool had been growing - mowed it a bit more than a week ago and it´s shooting up. The pumpkin vine takes over more and more space as the days go by. Red has started early this morning - the walls of the bathroom are going up!

Ah! as I was uploading this post, the rain started again ...