At the end of the 2009 we headed to Tasmania in the new car. As you would have read in last year’s update, Mark’s father died in September. Just prior to our departure, we bought his Range Rover from the estate – while this was not the sort of car we had ever considered, this car was & still is a tangible link with Harry. There were three things that really defined him – his printing business in Pyrmont, his house in Hunters Hill & his succession of Range Rovers. Very sadly, it is only the Range Rover that remains in the family now.
We had two weeks of almost perfect sunshine, while friends who went north to Queensland were rained on for 10 days straight. After some bushwalking & sightseeing in the north of Tasmania, we headed to Hobart for Christmas with Sally’s family, now augmented by new cousin Caitlin. We then headed off to show the children parts of Tassie they had not been to or forgotten. A fantastic break! Back on Melbourne we dropped Aisha off for an 8 day Centenary of Guiding camp in Geelong which she had worked all year to raise $1,000 to attend. William meanwhile went for 5 days to Sydney with the Cubs which included a visit to the Scout jamboree and a promotion for William to seconder, a responsibility he was very proud of and has taken quite seriously since. Mark and Sally made the most of this fortuitous confluence of child free days and headed away for their own relaxing escape!
At the end of February Sally got a surprise request to work on Christmas Island for 3 weeks. In the time she was there, 6 boats arrived with mainly Afghan & Sri Lankan asylum seekers, but the largest boat made up of various groups of Arabic speakers & Iranians. Christmas Island itself is in the Indian Ocean, about 5 hours by plane north of Perth. It is an amazing tropical island renowned for incredible birdlife & crabs. While she worked very long hours she had a good time and once she was home, Mark & the kids were soon tired of hearing “…on Christmas island, on Christmas island….”
In April, Sally decided to apply for an overseas posting. Having said she would never do it again after Jakarta, she now thinks it is a bit like childbirth; after a while you forget the pain and it all starts looking a bit rosey again! While she wasn’t at all sure of her chances we nonetheless sat down and drew up a short list of possibilities.
Meanwhile life went on. The children were having a great year with their swimming (Aisha made it through to A.C.T level) and indoor soccer (Aisha was a star goalie and her team won their grand final while William outclassed the mainly younger boys he had been put with in a 6-8 yr old team). Aisha made it through to regional level with cross country and both children continued to enjoy the various fun runs they went in with Sally. Mark was happy with his new school, Charnwood Dunlop Primary School, where he was again working with several teachers from Gold Creek High School where he'd been two years before and, in particular, the deputy Kate Smith with whom he has a great working relationship. Sally had been elected as president of the school music scheme (in her absence on Christmas Island!) and threw herself into helping arrange the schools’ annual 3 day music festival. This was to be an extra special festival, being the school's 25th but an additional complexity came in the form of a looming federal election (the school is always required as a polling booth) and school building projects going on. As it turned out the festival did coincide with the election but Sally and the principal managed to get the Electoral Commission to move and the festival was a great success!
While the year could be summarised as a good one, the kids didn’t come out of it accident free! In the middle of the year, William took it upon himself to climb down the 3m verandah via the irrigation piping hanging down to the garden. Not surprisingly it failed to support his weight…he fell down onto his back, cutting it open and gashing his head on pavers below. This required a trip to casualty and he only avoided stitches because Mark realised they would never get close enough for them to be done!!
We moved into the soccer season and to our surprise each child ended up breaking an arm in what we had thought was one of the safer ball sports! First it was Aisha who was elbowed and sent for a 360 degree roll onto her arm by a bad sport in a particularly aggressive team. She was in a cast for 4 weeks with a small buckle fracture. No sooner than she was out of the cast than Sally got a call from school to say William was down. He had fallen over his soccer ball just before the bell for the end of lunch went. His was a much worse fracture through both bones and only short of requiring pins. He was in a right angle cast up to the middle of his upper arm for more than 6 weeks.
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