And a happy New Year, Let’s hope it’s a good one, Without any fear . . .

In the immortal words of the oh-so-eloquent John Lennon, time marches on.

I was amazed when I logged on to see that my last post here was in August last year.  While I don’t want to be tied to blogging daily (because I am sure no-one wants to be subjected to drivel!), I couldn’t believe that I had let so much time pass.  Suffice to say, the latter part of 2010 became busier and busier.

Through couchusurfing.org we welcomed many travellers throughout the year.  This is an exciting social project to be involved in and allows us to continue to engage with others from around the globe.  I guess the proof is in the pudding – for us almost quite literally – at Christmas we had 7 Germans, 2 Czechs, 1 Chinese and a smattering of locals here to share the spirit of giving and sharing.

Most of these had visited us earlier in the year and our new friend Ina (from China) was also a link from the Couchsurfing project.   It was a time of challenge as we were in the midst of the wettest Christmas, December and year for 80 years.  It rained the proverbial 40 days and 40 nights and then some, which was followed by the flooding of Queensland that the politicians are calling ‘of biblical proportions’!

Having farewelled Jerry and Klara from Prague only a week earlier to head to Mackay and then (hopefully) to Carnarvon Gorge, there was a tense morning spent waiting for them to arrive ahead of waters pushing the Burnett River into major flood.  Thankfully they got through OK, but they had to miss Carnarvon – a good enough reason for a return visit some day!

Anja came back from Brisbane, Anne and Johannes (with Phillip and Trostan in tow) drove down from Ayr and Markus and Inga drove back from Melbourne to turn around and retrace their steps to Sydney after Christmas.  And while James, Antony and Amanda and the kids were not here, Gen added the family flavour to the day.

We began our festivities on Christmas Eve when the main part of the celebrations occur in Europe.  Not giving in to the desires of our visitors,we made them wait until Christmas morning for presents, but we did do a nice big traditional pork roast which was supported by Klara’s amazing potato salad.  That night, they all took turns is Skyping to their families at home – a nice Christmas surprise for most. 

Christmas morning was chaotic.  Eggs Benedict was followed by present opening before a quiet day for most.  We sat down to a late lunch around 3:30 pm of seafood, more of Klara’s potato salad and an amazing White chocolate Mousse prepared by Anne and Inga.  Of course we also had Christmas Cake – one of the better one I have made!

And no sooner had the last departed, we then welcomed Gan who was leading a group of young Japanese English language students who were staying in Maryborough.  An altogether much calmer experience to say the least!!  Very laid back, this was his tenth visit to Australia in this role. It was just such a pity that the weather was so terrible that we could not take him to see more of our amazing area.  More opportunities though to share some good local produce.

Hope that our very busy home wasn’t too much of a shock for him – mind you, we got a lovely shock one day.  Phone rang and the conversation went thus:
“Hello”
“Maria?  Its Allyson”
“Hi.  How are you?”
“Are you on the other side of the river?”
“Huh?  What do you mean?”
“Are you on the other side of the river?”
“Where ARE you?”
“Blitz Imports.  Tinana Road.  On the other side of the river”

Now, to put this in context you need to know a few things.  Blitz Imports are in Maryborough.  The river was the Mary River and the Lamington Bridge was closed to traffic in anticipation of flooding.  Oh.  And Allyson and Leith (her husband) are from Perth and we had no idea they were in Queensland!!!
Turns out that they had flown over to buy a car (as you do – ha ha) and had decided to hire a car for the day and drive up and say hello!  As well as these totally unexpected and thoroughly welcome visitors, we had a steady stream through the house last week and we even managed to squeeze a restaurant dinner in at the Port Residence with Andrew and Meredith and dinner with Anne and Mick from Brisbane and local friend Judith.  Poor Gan is probably glad to leave~!~ 

His farewell this morning was bitter-sweet.  We have promised to stay in touch and we issued an invitation for him to bring his family for a visit one day.  He left me with a beautiful Tahitian Pearl that he added to my phone dangle late one night – so lustrous and warm – a special reminder of a special visitor!

On the business front, Funding Power has grown from strength to strength.  The last couple of months were very very busy and I got to work with some fantastic people at St Stephens Hospital for a frenetic couple of weeks.  And although our Rotary Club application was unsuccessful in its first round, Michael from Bay Connect phoned this morning to say that they had received advice that the application we prepared to help work with young people disengaged from main stream services was successful.  It is always gratifying to hear that hard work has paid off!

So, I’m back in to the swing and promise that I won’t leave the posting so long this time!  See you all soon.

Read Full Post »

Autumn in Queensland

This is a beautiful time of the year here in Maryborough.  The weather has cleared and we seem to (thankfully) have seen the last of the rain for the moment.  This means that the nights and mornings are cooler and more importantly, not as humid.  The birds seem to love the autumn as well – you would hardly believe the cacophony that they raise at dawn and dusk.

And when the air is cool and the clouds have left for the sea, the night sky is so clear. Even though we live right in town, because the football grounds are across the road from us, there is less lighting around us and so the stars shine brightly.  It is one of the things that couchsurfers often comment on.  Michael has an incredible knowledge of the night sky and can spend hours pointing out all sorts of interesting things.

Our neighbours Frank and Mary are home again.  They have spent much of the last six months visiting their girls and their families.  Frank says its nice to be home and that they won’t be going anywhere for a little while.  We and they are despairing of our yards at the moment.  We both have had lawn grub through the lawn and it is all but dead, allowing a plethora of weeds to flourish.  Michael tried unsuccessfully to get some Weed’n’Feed yesterday so I guess we are not the only ones with the problem.

Well, as the day wore on, the temperature rose.  At Hervey Bay it was warm and humid, just begging for another storm (that never arrived).  Vicki says that she heard on the ABC radio that there is a 75% chance of a wetter than normal winter  <groan> great, just great . . . NOT.  We had a crazy day at the pawn shop today after the long weekend and I am sure that the weather didn’t help.

On the Funding Power side, I am picking up a few new clients, so that is nice.  Helps me to validate my decision and it is nice to know that my name is somewhat out there. 

My fantastic mother-in-law is 88 tomorrow.  She has her younger sister and her husband visiting at the moment, but will be up in a few weeks for a visit.  Still living in her own home and gets out to meet her friends almost daily!  What an inspiration!

Read Full Post »