Catch Up

It's been a busy few weeks. I don't know why I say that. As if any other weeks aren't busy?

Drew has been home for nearly four weeks!! I feel myself slowly unravelling. He's been catching up with friends (Big Day Out, Australia Day and cutting up the dance floor at our local nightclub on Friday nights (it was around in my younger days, we affectionately called it the Fleapit, by all reports not much has changed).

His trip to Antarctica has had a profound effect on him. The educators and their lectures and presentations have influenced his entire outlook. He is acutely aware of the environment and of the impact that the human race has on it. He says, "I have to go back. It totally changed my life". He's been to his old school and now has five presentations to do for them; they also invited him to attend next week's Grade 12 Retreat. He attended our local Council meeting to address them on the issue of plastic bags in the community and asked them for support in encouraging local businesses in the region to become Plastic Bag Free. He is working with a scientist/climatologist and other Students on Ice Alumni on a project whereby they hope to have Antarctica as the first Carbon Neutral Continent by 2020. He's made contact with the University of Tasmania who have put him in contact with a research scientist whose focus is on Plastic Pollution. He's featured in a two page spread in the regional paper and been on the front page of our local paper. He heads off to Uni in less than a week, ready to start the next phase of his life.

Meg is enjoying life in Tba and is absolutely loving her job. She's done the odd day here and there in the local office but I think her future lies elsewhere now. She is acting in her current role until the end of March; in the meantime she will apply for a permanent Supervisor position down there. There is constant speculation about the fate of Peach, daughter of Pepper the Goat. In a democracy of five, three vote for the freezer, one votes for goat life and the other won't enter the debate (donkey vote). In a true democracy the freezer option would win (even with preferences allocated) but in the Gibbons democracy, the females will most likely prevail (that would be the goat and the donkey votes).

We all attended young Harry's christening a few weeks ago; it was a cold, blustery, foggy and wet day in Tba. Meg was a bit under the weather too after celebrating the engagement of an old school friend.

We sold our little farm, the one we bought in 2000 to give us a place/space of our own. It's been a little neglected lately but has been a good asset to have. I haven't made a decision yet on the one we've looked at a couple of times.

We're off on a cruise in May - Gibbo's Mum will turn 80 while we're away (and it will be Mothers Day the day after we set sail). We will go with his Mum and three sisters to Vanuatu, Noumea and some other small island that I can't remember the name of. I checked my passport - it expires in August and it needs to be current for six months after your return - so I ordered a new one and ended up $233 poorer.

Andrew flew to Charleville at the height of the drama out there with flooding, to move stock in the shop owned by the people he works for; from there he flew to St. George, just as the town was being evacuated. I sent him a message to say "you're supposed to be getting out, not going in"! He is still there and spent his 45th birthday having a few beers and fishing, waiting for the water to arrive and subside.

We went to the Manager's Conference, this time at Twin Waters on the Sunshine Coast. Two full days of presentations and talking left me drained (I only heard half of what went on); actually, I 'd had enough after the first evening. These sort of gatherings really do wear me out. We both received service awards - Gibbo for 20+ years, me for 5+ years. The spiel when mine was announced brought some laughter; the speaker didn't know whether mine was for - "Service to Country, Service to the Company - or the Tolerance Award" - I know which one.

We came home via Maleny and had coffee and cake and a walk around the main street. It's a nice little place. We visited an organic shop and while Gibbo talked to the assistant I fossicked for things. I found a bar of homemade lavender soap for Meg; an Environmental Toothbrush for Drew and Chris and a Safix scrub for me (one for the kitchen and one to keep). It's made from coconut fibre and is held together with some sort of natural resin. We talked a lot on the way home about different ways to be sustainable at the new farm (wherever that might be) and the different things we could do to make money from a smallholding. Being just the two of us we could supply a fair amount of our own food just from raising livestock and having a vege garden. I grew up on a farm where I can't recall my mother ever buying meat; we killed everything - cattle, sheep, pigs, chooks, ducks, turkeys, pigeons and wood ducks; the chooks feet, gizzards and hearts went into chicken soup; we ate the pig trotters; and tripe (ugh); we ate fish and crayfish that we caught in the river; we dissected stomachs to see what they'd all been eating and we threw pig lungs at each other. If you didn't duck quick enough you'd get slapped in the side of the head by a flying pig lung. You might have got a last minute shouted warning of "look out" but more often than not there'd be no warning at all! Just "slap" and guffaws of laughter from whichever two siblings weren't in the firing line! My father taught me how to gut a chicken in the old meat house; we hung them by the neck on hooks until they were dry and ready to freeze. I sold ducks at Easter and Christmas to make a bit of pocket money. I collected brown beer bottles too, to sell for recycling (there were plenty of them). I had a great childhood, living wild and free on the riverbank! However, I digress! We didn't really come to any decisions but it was a good discussion and it planted a few seeds that might sprout. Or might not.