Thanks to 2011 for a great year!

Thanks to 2011 for a great year!

 Packing Up Christmas

Christmas is a favourite time of the year in our house and the tradition is the decorations stay up until 6 January. Although a few pieces had already been packed away, today saw the major activity.

It was 37 degrees outside but inside it was cool and refreshing enough for the Australian Mist to take part in the goings on and to be the number one supervisor of what went where.

 Christmas 2010 was a scaled down version of our normal decorating....due in part to the DH's work commitments not allowing him to be in Victoria as he usually is in December. Then we all spent some time in Brisbane before Christmas.

Still, it did take quite a few hours to carefully wrap,  pack. and organise the storage of tree, decorations, Santas, linen and tableware.

It was lovely to have it out but now it's put away, there is that "new year" feeling in the house.

LAST DAY...

Here we are ...at the end of another year ...and a decade....

2010 has brought us challenges and happy moments. Without dwelling on it all, we are happy and thankful for all we have. 2010 has shown us how quickly it can all change.

Indiana's illness for one and just recently, Gordon had a very nasty fall off his bike that could have had a very different outcome.

So, we are indeed grateful to be all together.

For many many years, we have lived our lives by the mantra, "Make the most of every opportunity."

That belief has taken us to many places and given us many experiences.

We'll end this post with a piece of advice Gordon spied this week on a calendar:-

Always look forward. There are no regrets in that direction.

It is with those thoughts we approach 2011.

We wish you a year filled with happiness, health and many moments being with those who are important to you.

A Finish Before the Year's End...

In between Uni assignments, writing student reports, teaching and life.....I did get this quilt finished!

Started when we were living in Seattle, it's made using whatever fabrics were sitting on my cutting table in early 2004.  Decisions about the borders were made and started on in a UFO class in Sunbury in 2005 and finally finished early 2010.

It was quilted by Kerrie at Black Forest Quilting during the year and I surprised myself by being able to locate the binding fabric later in the year.

 Pieced backings have become a favourite and I try to colour co ordinate them with the quilt front. The added bonus of pieced backing being that they used up fabric out of the stash...which is particularly in keeping of the original idea of this quilt...to use only what I had on hand.
Goal achieved!

Merry Christmas

 After a short trip away, we arrived home on December 23 and have had a lovely day today celebrating and knowing that we have much to be thankful for.

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season. 

Tableware display in a major department store

It's Christmas Time in the City...

The sun came out in Brisbane yesterday so I headed off to have a look around the shops and enjoy the atmosphere.

I always enjoy looking at the displays of products. 
Had to use my iPhone camera which is certainly not the best.

Have some other images but Blogger keeps changing the orientation even though they are correct in the album.

 

 SUMMER HOLIDAYS! 

Friday @ 1:00pm we had the last assembly of the school year and by 1:30 pm the 2010 School Year was over!  Reports are done, boxes are packed and I have once more relocated to another classroom.

It was a year of lots of highs and some very sad times. 

A lot of great moments when you get to be witness to children learning and growing...that's what takes me back year after year.

Along the way, I have made some new friends as well as honouring  a couple of friends as they retired.

And I am now half way through a Master Of Literacy at Monash University.

So here I am on the first day of the Summer Holidays. In the past, I have been known to have been known to have had an afternoon siesta in the pergola.

This year though the energy levels seem to be different ( how, I don't know!) and today we have been out and about looking for a new bike helmet for the Husband.

The other tradition I have on the first day of the Summer Holidays is to buy myself is to read something that is NOT related to education.

So today these were packed away 

and I treated myself to a couple of quilt magazines to add to the other "compulsory" holiday reading.

As always, all potential reading material has to be approved!

Gordon Farewells a Very Old Friend

I said farewell to a very old and very dear friend yesterday.  It was quite an emotional journey as I met with many of my old comrades, some I hadn’t seen for thirty years or more.  We had all came together one more time to pay our respects.  We remembered the good times and our adventures together, which for me was from my late teens and through my 20s.  A period where we all  felt we could conquer the world together.  And since parting ways in the 80s my friend's path and mine crossed often and with a great sense of pride and achievement I admired the successes that my friend had experienced. 

But nothing remains invincible or can remain forever and it was time to meet one last time for one last airshow and say farewell to the astounding F-111 Strike Aircraft.

This amazing aircraft had served Australia as a front line bomber for 37 years and on the 3 December it was time to retire.

 

In my late teens I was posted with the RAAF to work on the F-111 as a Radio Technician.  The F-111 was almost new then, the RAAF having owned them for only two years.  It was a job that was to last 10 years and span three different units at RAAF Base Amberley.  It was and remains the most complex aircraft the RAAF had ever owned.  The most challenging technical job a RAAF technician could be assigned to undertake was the maintenance of the F-111.

Before I had turned 20 I was in the realm of technology and sophistication that was only ever dreamed of in science fiction movies.  I became a specialist on Terrain Following Radar systems, that allowed the aircraft to skim 200 feet above the ground at almost the speed of sound and where to get it wrong could mean catastrophic results for both aircraft and crew.  There were Attack Radar Systems for locating targets; Radar Warning Systems that alerted the crew to the presence of enemy radars on land, sea and air; Radar and Communication Jamming Systems, which confused enemy radars trying to track the aircraft. And then there was the Pavetack System that allowed the aircraft to place laser guided bombs dropped from over 10 Kms away to within less than a metre of the target.  

We shared adventures together that even today seem like an amazing dream.   We travelled interstate, all around Australia, and then overseas many times a year.  Places went by in a blur, passports were filled and replaced and I filled two World Health Organisation booklets with records of inoculations. 

As a young Corporal Radio Technician I was privileged to fly in one, simply because I had boasted to a pilot that “Because I could fix the navigation and radar systems, then of course I could navigate one”.   I didn’t realise then that I was getting an opportunity to do something that fewer than 800 Australians would ever experience.

Holding centre stage was my favourite old friend A8-148, an aircraft I had fixed many times and flown in once. It had taken me from down low in the valleys in Queensland and to the very edge of space and back.  From a standing start to the speed of sound and beyond. 

But now it was time to say goodbye.  To listen to the speeches, to shed a tear, and reflect on our younger years.

Then the Piper played and it was all but a distant memory.

Thanks for the memories, thanks for the thunder and thanks for letting me believe I could conquer the world.

Farewell my friend.

Anything You Can Do I can Do with More Important People

On Sunday, 2 Oct, Brisbane held an 'Open House' to many of the historical or interesting buildings.  The authorities had to include interesting buildings because, as is the way of Brisneyland, they've knocked most of the historical buildings down.  

Such is the disdain for old architecture in Brisbane, when World Expo was held in Brisneyland in 1988, and the good people of the UK sent a statue from the 16th Century to be displayed, the Expo organisers were bitterly dissapointed and expressed dismay that the UK Government hadn't seen fit to send something that was new.  Anyway - we digress as we remember stunning buildings like The Bellevue Hotel, The Commonwealth Bank Building and Cloudland, that all recieved government sanctioned midnight introductions to bulldozers.  But as the say in Queensland, "Don't Look Back and Never Go Forward."

Because it was heavily advertised and surrounded in mystique we went to see the Freemason's Building in Anne Street.  As we formed an orderley que (Queenslanders are world class at forming orderly ques - queing at bus stops, ferry terminals and even sushi bars) we noticed a shining black car adorned with flags parked in the yellow zone on the roadside.  Queensland must have a world record quantity of official cars, as so much space is set aside and painted bright yellow for them to park in.

Inside the Freemason's temple we came across the Governor of Queensland, Ms Penelope Wensley, who was just as interested to see the Freemasons as we were.

Notice anyone familiar in the background?