A chance to celebrate a busy, blurred 2018

Work place functions... A great time to catch up and look back on what was hopefully a very success year... 2018 has flashed past and it was great to attend the celebratory luncheon hosted by the Management and Elected Members of the council that I work for. Great in the way that years of service and staff who have gone above and beyond have been able to have their efforts recognised. It is also a wonderful opportunity to see just how big and how broad an employer that a local council is, so many community focused functions being performed day in and day out by an army of willing, capable and passionate people. Finally it was a great chance to reflect back upon the year that has been and remember and recognise all the amazing achievements (awards earned, projects completed, deadlines delivered)…

I am quite lucky to work with a very diverse team, everyone with a plethora of skills we use everyday to run events and workshops, prepare new items for borrowing, find and recommend things for people to read or listen to or see. These tasks never the same except that everyday they are our business as usual.

As we, like many other businesses now close down for Christmas and the focus turns away from work and toward family it is truly terrific to have one big gathering to mark this. Indeed a chance to celebrate as each and every year there is plenty that has gone well.

Focusing on family I wish you all, friends and family both physical and digital a very Merry Christmas and the happiest New Year. For those whose 2018 has been marred by pain and sadness I hope that 2019 proves to be a great year. In fact for everyone I wish for you all only love, joy, success and wonder for a fun fuelled 2019... Enjoy and those who are travelling please travel safe...

A chapter of our lives draws to a close

So proud of my son who today has graduated from Primary School and is off to High School at the beginning of 2019. I still remember the daunting day of my first day of Year 8 where I discovered all the kids I knew from Primary were suddenly my best mates. With so many more students than you are used to seeing all gather in one place it can be quite scary. My son I feel will be fine though, he has a knack his Dad never had... He has a very easy going nature and the ability to quickly find like-minded people, allies for his schooling years.

It has been an emotional time these first few weeks of December with the final school concert for Master 12, a Primary graduation dinner (I never got one of those when I finished Year 7) and now... finally... the last day of term.

I am sure High School will prove to be a fun filled ride and my friend magnet of a boy will make his way through it all with best mates, good grades and come out the other side all set for life. Is he ready for the challenge? Probably more than ready... Are his Mum and Dad? I severely doubt it! Firstly though we must survive the Aussie summer holidays... Ready... Steady... Here we go...

Happy birthday to a great mate

Last night we had the pleasure of joining many in helping a great mate, proud to call my brother-in-law and all round good guy Ben who has just turned 40 years young. In typical Ben style the party was a hoot with everyone tackling the SPY theme in their own creative way. The kids just loved it dressing up in all black wearing sunglasses at night and telling people to "stick 'em up!" with their empty water pistols.

I have been really getting into writing again lately, spurred on by my attempt at 50,000 words for Novel November. While the night just gone is still fairly fresh in my mind I thought I'd put pen to paper. Below is the result. Hope you all enjoy my creation... Especially you, M'Lord Benjamin...

An Ode to a Mate on turning 4 and Oh... A poem in four verses

Mum and Dad! I tell not a lie

Everyone was there at Le Convention de Spy

Twice the James Bond, twice the bow tie

Such a costumed menagerie and I'll tell you why

A great mate, Lord Benjamin or Hicksy by name

Had gathered us together for one massive game

The two rounds we played both ended the same

President saved, bomber exposed and all by a fair dame

At this party represented were spy royalty

Agents in suits, Spy VS Spy, a brick wall and hedge, a fake beard or three

Pizzas and cheesecakes and slices oh so very yummy

And all because the Spy Master Ben had turned the young age of forty

The girls looked amazing in spy-ware or dresses divine

The boys scrubbed up well, all looking fine

Happy birthday was sung around about half-past nine

Then we all toasted Ben with glasses of champagne, beer or wine

Happy birthday to a great mate Ben. Hope you had as fun a night as we did. My big 4 and Oh is coming up soon. You have certainly set a high bar as nights of fun go. I wonder what theme I could go with for mine...

Epic successes and epic fails

I have (madly) put my hat in the ring to take part in National Novel Writing Month. It has been a real challenge for me but an opportunity to get back into writing a longer manuscript. The idea is to knuckle down and produce a raw (little to no editing) 50,000 word novel during the 30 days of the month of November. With all of the end of year things to do with school and work and just not being able to find time to write (hence the severe lack of posts over the last month at least) I must admit now to the epic failure which is my NaNoWriMo effort... Banging out two half decent sessions of 1,000 words or more I have managed to rack up a grand total of 4,148 words (almost 10%). The word counter on the website informs me that it would take the next eleventh months (pretty much to the start of the next NaNoWriMo) before I would reach my required 50K.

From such an epic fail though I move swiftly on to last night and the amazingly fun night my wonderful and truly terrific wife and I put on for the local library team. We have had a bit of a rough and tough 2018 which only just now seems to be smoothing itself out. Certain members of the team I manage are having tough moments of their own so an end of year wind down was a exactly what was needed. We had at least half the team present with partners and kids and it was just such a fun night of eating and drinking and chatting away the night. Hopefully next year we can have even more members come along. I know that what ever we do it is bound to be great fun.

Waiting in the balance now is a children's event planned for work for tomorrow. I am hoping that the community gets behind their local author and their local library and that we get hoards and hoards of visitors for the day... The record we are aiming to beat... Just 128 visitors in 4 hours... This was set in late July last year (the first time we had this same children's author). Bring on the chaos and fingers crossed we break our record... If you are in the neighbourhood please drop by...

Look out!! Christmas Time is Fast Approaching...

What a wonderful weekend... Starting on Friday I was lucky enough to have the day off and head over to the school my kids (Master 12, Miss 11 and Miss 8) attend with my amazing and truly wondrous wife to mass produce around 20 homemade pizzas. Friday Fresh is a great canteen incentive that Jervois Primary (like many schools around the world) do to make sure the kids are getting a heathy, home cooked meal, have full tummies and it is also an opportunity to utilise some of the goodies grown in the school garden... Win! Win! Winners all round!!

Our home made pizzas with a wholemeal flour and Greek yogurt base are simple to make, extra yummy and oh so amazingly filling. I think a good 90% of the kids and teaching staff order Friday Fresh when they know we are in the kitchen.

Following on from a busy and satisfying Friday day we had a great tea and then settled in to watch HUGO for Family Movie Night... I just love this chance to all sit around and enjoy a fun, often funny family movie. Sometimes it is a DVD we bought of something we missed at the cinema, sometimes a movie we have streamed and often it is something I have spotted at work (our local library has a great DVD collection for all ages, very eclectic with something for everyone and then some)... In this instance it was the latter, a film we have had in the teen section which often gets borrowed. When Master 12 suggested he was reading the book the movie HUGO is based on as a class novel I thought it was time for us to borrow the DVD too and see just how great a film it is. All I can say is we all loved it (or at least what we all say of it). Great cast, great story and great pace had all of us highly entertained.

Following this I had a pretty good shift at the library on Saturday morning and (drum roll please)... The Murray Bridge Community Christmas Pageant. In similar fashion to other years I nominated to walk with my daughter, Miss 11 and her cousin Miss M on the local Girl Guide float which had a truly Aussie theme of A Beach Christmas. A quick shout out to a local company Longs Sand and Metal who donated the pile of sand that some of the Guides used to build sandcastles on the back of the truck as part of the float. Also a quick mention of the massive show of talent of the two Guides who played Totem Tennis while said truck made its way down the main street (Bridge Street), turned at the roundabout, headed down the steep Seventh Street hill and then weaved its way down to the Murray River. Also finally a thanks to the truck driver (cheers Nick!) who didn't run me over as I walked beside the truck spending the who walk throwing pretend buckets of water (made from blue steamers and tinsel) at all the kids that wanted lollies and all the families I know. I am truly not sure who had more fun... The Adelaide and Murray Bridge pageants over now for another year it is a huge reminder that crazy Christmas time is just around the corner...

A Law/Crook catch up followed after with the addition of a good mate (let's just call him Batman)... The boys settled in with a delightful glass of scotch and a fun game of Gloom (and guess who won... I mean lost... I mean I don't know what I mean...) while the sisters caught up and the kids just did what our kids love to do. Love so much that whenever our families catch up it all seems to just go smoothly...

That brings us to today... A lazy morning followed by a trip to the docs (nothing too sinister, just a check over one of the kids for piece of mind)... Another shift at work and then a lazy afternoon/evening fending of Shmunday (Sunday blending into Monday)... Sadly I still have some ironing to do but nothing I can't handle... Cannot wait to see what next weekend has in store...

Love is in the air

I'm very excited but a touch nervous about being MC at a wedding for two wonderful friends... I cannot wait to suit up though and give this roll my best effort... I just love it when two wonderful people find each other and just know they want to be together... It is indeed a perfect day for such a perfect event...

Aussies be proud... Just watched one of the best Australian movies ever...

Who has seen The Dressmaker? An Aussie film from 2015 (I think) which I strongly believe we should all be very proud of. It has a very grown up Kate Winslet as leading lady who has shown she is very much moved on from her role as Rose in Titanic. It is a film like this which makes me proud to announce Kate is one of the best Australia has as an actor at the moment (even though my wife has correctly informed me she is British born and raised)… See Kate is so amazing that we Aussies should adopt her as we have so many overseas talents. The supportive cast in The Dressmaker is also outstanding with the idea of the remote country town with a dark secret successfully reflected. My favourite character in the film would have to be Hugo Weaving though... Genius...

This is a fantastic film which takes its viewers through a true roller coaster of emotions... At times a very dark film it is certainly not one for the feint hearted. My wife and I watched it on a romantic night in... It was not at all what I initially expected it to be but The Dressmaker did not disappoint and was thoroughly enjoyed by both of us. One that all Australians should be proud of.

Easily five stars... Certainly not cursed, Kate and the rest have a true gem on their hands... I'm also proud to know that this wonderful film is based on the novel of the same name... Something I'll be looking for on the shelves of my local library expecting a juicy read...