Finally! It's Happened to Me...

Yes, finally - I have a property for sale! See the thing is, I'm trying to get my finances (finally) sorted out for once and for all - no mean feat I can assure you. So the first thing was to clear all the credit cards, which is almost done - I'm still waiting on the response from www.taxback.com as I am apparently owed some £1400 in tax back from the UK, which will be perfect. Then, I paid off my Aussie credit card, and now the plan is to generate some capital with which to re-invest. That's why I'm selling off my 'dog' assets - the ones which are underperforming. Its all terribly grown-up...

So here it is! If you're interested, go to http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-deception+bay-106554811 and you can see it for yourself - or here's the main pic here!

Just Because I Like It...

Saw this video a few years back (or rather, one very similar) and re-discovered it again recently:

The funniest thing though was what happened when I played it. Picture the scene: Monday morning, crowded staff room at Charles Edward Brooke. Staff briefing just about to start, the inimitable Michael Place (bless his soul) about to kick off in his usual, deathly dull and terribly dry fashion - when suddenly the attachment to the email I'm reading finally loads up and with a mini fanfare, just as Mick has his mouth open in goldfish like fashion, a trumpeting fanfare breaks out, followed by these immortal words:

What's the worst day of the week that gets us all depressed?

M-O-N-D-A-Y S-U-C-K-S

Here comes more aggravation and a brand new week of stress

M-O-N-D-A-Y S-U-C-K-S

Monday sucks! Monday sucks!

Forever will it make you want to cry!

So come along and sing your sing and get it off your chest

M-O-N-D-A-Y S-U-C-K-S!

Hehehe...

On Again, Off Again - Yr 12 Retreat

As you will know from previous posts, we have been recently enduring a painful series of strikes, in the name of a fairer pay deal. As I may have summarised, Queensland Catholic teachers are the lowest paid in the country (outside of Tasmania - but that's not really Australia anyway!), and we are trying to narrow the 'inequality' margin in this respect. We have been doing this through a series of one-day strikes, which culminated recently in an indefinite ban on extra-curricular activities. As a result of this ban, I have been really in a bit of an emotional quandary, as although I agree with industrial action, I disagree with this form of it - but have been supporting it anyway. It came a bit to a head in the last week of term, when the Head asked for teachers who had volunteered to go on Yr 12 retreat, to confirm their intention to attend. After a great deal of struggle, I decided that if I was supporting the industrial action by not rehearsing my choir, then I couldn't in good faith continue to go on retreat. So I was one of only 2 teachers who withdrew their support for the retreat. I must admit, I was quite distressed to see that hardly anyone was supporting this action.

Anyway, all this happened in the last week of school before the Easter holidays. So, as it stood at the start of the holidays, I was no longer conducting Chorale rehearsals, and no longer attending retreat. Sorted.

However, half-way through the holidays I received an email stating that in good faith, with the promise of further developments with the Employers within the Enterprise Bargaining unit, the indefinite ban on extra-curricular action was being called off for a time. Great, I can do my choir again. But what of retreat?

Well, as they had already made new arrangements, I naturally assumed I still wasn't going, and made arrangements to house-sit and mind Beck and Damo's dogs whilst they were on holidays. However, within 1 hour of being back at school on Monday, the Head of RE approached me with a situation. It seemed that one of the teachers was now unable to attend retreat due to health issues with her mother, so would I mind going again?

Me, being a person for whom the word 'no', alas, doesn't exist, immediately agreed - and immediately regretted it. However, I am nothing if not a person of my word, so there it was. I was now going on retreat again.

Unfortunately (or as it turned out, fortunately) for me I couldn't go on the one I originally was supposed to go on, so I ended up at Ewen Maddock Dam, Landsborough. I have to say, this place was such a dive! If you check out the website, it actually looks quite nice - but it was just disgusting! Soooo dirty, soooo old, and soooo poorly kept!

Put it this way, the girls complained within a few minutes of arrival of seeing huge rats in their rooms. Now whilst I suspect this was an exaggeration, I don't now doubt that there was some form of creepy crawly in there. The reason for my conviction is, that on the first night, I accidentally left a muesli bar in my bag, and accidentally left the bag unzipped. When I awoke the next morning, there were teeth marks and a big bite taken out of my bar! Ugggg!

The retreat itself was ok - but on a spiritual level, just bollocks. Absolutely nothing of a Christian commitment at all, their version of a 'relationship with God' basically consists of a lump of plasticine modelled into a tree, or a boat, or something stupid. Just rubbish. But I knew that already from last year's retreat... where I had stupidly shared my 'testimony' in full on Salvation Army style to a bunch of people for whom God is just a vapid spirit (if they even believe that) floating out there in the ether, of absolutely no consequence to them. Soooo wrong.

Anyway, it was still nice to get to know the girls a bit better - and certainly nice not to have to go to school. Even with the mice...! but I will never go back to Ewen Maddock dam again...

With the other teachers at the Campfire - Susan, Cheryl, Jenny K, Me, Kate and Jenny S

When Miss M Went To South Bank

On Tuesday I had the lovely joy of babysitting my niece Miss M. I decided that for a treat, we would go to the Woolshed. I arrived at the allotted time, and after some re-arranging with the car seat, we were finally off - a bit later than expected though. Therefore I decided that, as we would miss the 11am Ram show, we should go to the 1pm one, so I took her to get a donut and a babycino, to kill some time.

At the appropriate time we set off for the Woolshed - about a 30 minute journey or so. Alas, when we got there, I discovered that even though I had checked the ticket prices, address and times online, the Woolshed (or "Wooly-shed" as Miss M was calling it) has permanently closed down! What to do?

So we drove off into the city and got the City Cat over to South Bank for an afternoon at the beach. Miss M didn't know the difference! What a lovely time we had!

On Strike - Again!

Last week has been harrowing in more ways than one for me. You may recall that back in October Catholic teachers in Queensland were on strike over pay conditions. Alas, that strike had no effect, and so industrial action has been stepped up - two weeks back we held a ban on extra-curricular activities for one whole week, which resulted in nothing, and so last Wednesday we had another full day strike, followed by an indefinite ban on extra curricular activities.

Personally, I believe in the issue we are fighting for (Queensland Catholic teachers are the lowest paid in the state, and in my pay band, I earn $7000 less than if I worked in NSW), but I'm not sure I'm totally in favour of the action, in the format we are taking. I really enjoy doing my extra-curricular activities, and I don't want to stop rehearsing my choir (especially as they are the good choir in the school and I only just got them) but I am really torn - my principle, despite having voted "no" on the extra-curricular component, is to support my colleagues - which means I have to follow the strike action.

So I am doing so - which meant that last Wednesday I had the day off, unpaid. Knowing that Wednesday is a day that Mum and Dad mind Bethany, I decided to go up to their place on Tuesday night, stay over, and then spend some time with Bethany the next morning before going off to look at potential flats (more on that in a later post). Dad had asked if I would go up there because he was quite keen to take Bethany out in the dinghy for her first dinghy ride - but she is a bit of a live wire and you really need someone there just to manage her. We had a fabulous time though, she seemed to really enjoy the dinghy experience, and like all Grandchildren before her, and I'm sure after her, she had a go at "steering" the dinghy too!

Here's a little vid I made to commemorate the whole thing:

Birthday, Birthdays and Moore Birthdays!

As my efforts at posting this year have been somewhat remiss, I thought I should at least make another attempt - even though I know that no-one is reading this anymore. At least it'll be an online diary for me...

So we have had now since the last birthday I mentioned, another 5 birthday celebrations (although one was my brother in law's which he celebrated with his immediate family). The birthdays were:

December - Mum's 60th and Lach's 11th, on the same day - Kev's a bit earlier

February - mine

March - Miss G's 1st birthday.

So in order, here's what happened:

Mum's 60th / Lach's 11th

Mum's 60th and Lach's 11th fall on the same day. This year, being Mum's 60th, it was a big celebration - Dad booked, as a surprise, the Kookaburra Queen for us all for lunch - Mum didn't know about it. All she knew was that at some point in the day we were all going somewhere nice for a meal. Beck organised though for Mum to have her make-up specially done by a friend of hers (all paid of course), and then Dad drove her (via Nanny's to pick up Nanny and Mal) into town, where we all met her at the pier. This though, was not without some drama - as poor Mel and Kev discovered that the journey into town from their place is infinitely longer than they had allowed, and they literally had to run for the boat, boarding with just minutes to spare! The boat doesn't wait!

After the absolutely gorgeous lunch, I had planned for Mum my gift - a concert at the Powerhouse with the Idea of North. It was a very fitting end to a truly lovely day!

Mine

My birthday this year was infinitely better than last year! I suspect that's because this year I decided that it couldn't be as bad as the last, so I wasn't going to let it get me down - plus, instead of going out for a meal, I decided that I preferred something much more quiet - a lunch at Mum's. So, Mum cooked up my favourite meal, Chicken casserole, and everyone came over for Sunday lunch (well, everyone except Mal and Nanny). The cake was lovely: Mum made it out of cupcakes, and they were oh so yummy, and oh so pretty.

The actual day itself was pretty good too - namely because this year I actually told people at school that it was happening, so they planned a lovely morning tea for me. The other thing that made a huge difference was that I didn't have an awful Curriculum Team meeting after school to lead, with my team of well-meaning misfits! And then on the actual day, Mel, Mum and Beck took me to see my all time most favourite musical, Avenue Q! So I truly had a special day!

Gabby's

I was very privileged to be able to share in my niece's first birthday. Beck decided to hold a party at her house, and I was put (again) in charge of the 'pass the parcel'. The special thing about this party was that Nanny actually made it, so that was lovely. There were so many people there! It was truly a lovely day.

So that's been the birthday update... the next batch I think (other than Demo's in May) will be July - and then it will be bang, bang, bang - one after the other... I just love birthdays!

The Australian Open

Ok, so its been a bit of a while since I last posted - but to be fair its not necessarily because there isn't anything to say - its just that I haven't had time to say it.

Anyway, in January I went to Melbourne to see the Australian Open, and I made this little video about it. Its pretty corny, but you get the picture...

The Cutest Pic Ever!

Isn't this just the cutest pic ever? Its one that my Dad took some time ago one afternoon when trying to get Miss B off to sleep - but I think its just gorgeous!

And speaking of gorgeous, this one of Miss M watching the tennis which Beck sent me is very a cute one too! All my nieces and nephews are very cute - but then as Beck is fond of saying, we don't breed 'em ugly!

Updates and Apologies

Well I guess I owe everyone out there in blog-land a big apology. I have been seriously slack.

Not lazy, mind. Just slack - as I have actually had probably my fair share of things to post about - I know if you check my stats for last year and the previous two years, well, I've been down on my blogging - but then if you factor in I only had 1 trip and that was back to the UK, well, there just hasn't been that much of any real excitement to report. Yes, it could be argued that I had a trip to Hong Kong - but that was work, you know. Hard work. Hehehe...

So anyway, I owe you all an apology - and thought I would make it all better with this little video that my sister Melissa shot when we went to the Brisbane International recently... But so you get the full benefit of the humour (cos it really is very funny - we practically killed ourselves laughing when Mel showed it to us just minutes after shooting it), I've attached a preliminary video so you understand the meaning of the gesture. Just to clarify, the gesture being made is the Lleyton Hewitt "C'mon"! Enjoy!

And here's Mel's main video:

Hong Kong Phooey

This week I have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to Hong Kong with the school choir and orchestra for a week long tour.

So far we have only been here a few days, and already it has been pretty full on. We arrived around 6pm on Saturday after our 8+ hr flight, and then it was straight to the hotel - with a twist. Saturday was the start of the East Asia Games, and as such, they had scheduled a firework extravaganza to be staged in the harbour, which is incidently about 250metres or so from our hotel. As a result, all the roads were blocked off in the immediate vicinity of our hotel - thus our bus was unable to drop us to our door, and we were therefore forced to walk about 1-1.5 kms (with our luggage and instruments) to our hotel. This was fine for me, as I have wheels on my suitcase, but some of the girls didn't, and being the martyr that I am, I decided to help one of them. This therefore meant that for the majority of the distance, I dragged my own suitcase behind whilst carrying a students - and boy, was it heavy. I still have callouses on my hands from the experience.

We are staying at the YMCA Salisbury Hotel, which, for a budget hotel, is actually very nice.

Once we arrived at the hotel, we literally dropped our bags and ran so that we could see the fireworks. Alas, the roads were very crowded and we really couldn't get a good observation point, until Tim mentioned that his hotel room overlooked the harbour. Next thing, we managed to cram 39 people up in his room to watch the fireworks. They were pretty good too!

The next day we spent the morning shopping - or rather, the girls did - but Tim and I went looking for internet so we could sort out some arrangements for the next few days. Thank goodness for Starbucks, I say. The afternoon was spent on an organised bus tour of Hong Kong, where we went to Victoria Peak for wonderful views of the harbour (and actually could see some stuff because the weather was relatively clear), then to Aberdeen fishing village, and then to the Stanley St markets. Here is an excerpt from the official school blog, which details the day a bit more than I have: Today saw us take a little detour from our original itinerary and see some of the sights of Hong Kong, literally. In small groups we spent the morning, after breakfast, exploring the nearby streets to our hotel including Hong Kong’s ‘main drag’, Nathan Rd. Not too many things were open at this point, because the locals don’t really wake up until 10, so our body clocks have definitely had a substantial adjustment. Midday saw us have a beautiful lunch of yum cha, which seemed to be made up of pork, pork and more pork. Lunch also enabled us to sample some fragrant Jasmine tea and the more earthy-flavoured Pu-li tea. It was after this we met up with our experienced guide Maria for a trip to Hong Kong island. Each segment of the bus trip was filled with personal stories, weather patterns, Fung Shui and Local history which gives our trip a bit of context. One of the best stories related to the underwater tunnels - in the ‘old days’ during the typhoon season, before the rains struck the husbands of families would ring their wives to stock the house, gather the children and bar the windows. But the would also mention how they ‘would have to say the night on Hong Kong Island’. Suffice is to say after the underwater tunnels were built, they had no excuse to not be home! Today also saw us visit the Highest point in the state, Victoria Point that allows one to fully take in the massive skyline of high rises that sprawl around the country side and seem to rise like the eight mountains that surround the city. We then took a trip backdown the mountain to the Aberdeen fishing village and, the bit everyone looked forward to, the Stanley Beach Markets. So we happily spent the better part of an hour bartering over handbags, hats, shirts, pillow covers, bracelets and dresses. The selection was amazing and so we returned to the hotel on the bus with our backs aching and our suitcases looking a little fuller. Tonight, we once again split up in to year levels and picked a spot for dinner, most of us opting to eat western i.e. Macca’s and Pizza Hut. After dinner saw our first batch of rehearsals in preparation for our first concert tomorrow!