Merry Christmas one and all

The final week before Christmas and the menu is prepared, tree looking Christmasy, house suitably decorated, David's put the nativity scene in place (his job every year) and gifts are starting to pile up.

Christmas 2010 at our place

To view photos taken at our Christmas luncheon, please click on my new blog for 2011.  I always think a year is enough time for a blog to store information.  My new blog is not with blogspot.com.  It's as follows:




www.jillmarley.weebly.com

A link for Christian Flash productions

I came across this link through a friend.  She directed me to one of the series of Christian focused Flash productions created by a guy in Switzerland who is also a chemist.         Click here:   www.E-water.net

Old friends found through Facebook

Well, friends from the past might be safer than 'old' friends! I was bridesmaid for her wedding back in the early seventies and we somehow lost track of one another as the years took their toll. Over thirty years of toll actually! Now some of the highlights and lowlights will be revealed like peeling back the layers of an onion. Holding onto the past is like trying to grasp hold of fog, but the tentricles of curiousity and longing to reach back into the past to retrieve a picture of lives lived with complications and happy moments, failures and successes, will be a worthwhile and fun journey for us both.  

spring mid-semester break

Through the misty morning sunrise, a koala sits on the gum outside my bedroom ensuite. Such a sweet creature. For a moment she lifted her head from a morning slumber to catch the breeze and I saw in her face, peace at her lot.

In appreciation...

Thank you to friends and family who have continued to assist my recovery over the past weeks. I'm pleased to report that I'm doing short walks now without pain at all. There have been occasions during these past few weeks when I have doubted my ability to pick up again, but prayers have been answered and I'm on the road to recovery. A gradual return to work is likely to happen second semester! Many thanks to you all.

Back to back

This may be the last of my blog entries at least for some months. On 6 May I will be undergoing surgery on my back again. Thank you to friends and family for your prayers and concern.

William Percival Marsden - my dad's story

For those of you who are interested in my father's story, you can find it at the website where I store large documents for download. It's about 20,000K.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VOZCRHI

A time to be born, a time to die, a time to live, and..

This is the time in England at the moment:
and the time in Australia:


For everything turn, turn, turn,
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.

Ouch!

Electricity shoots through from my back to my toes. It's on again. The CT scan reveals an imminent fourth operation and I start popping pain killers. The neurosurgeon will see me on Monday and decide my fate for the next few months.

The fate of the fete

I recall a time when my little daughter adorned a flora-enhanced bonnet for the Easter fete and my four year old son clipped on his rabbit mask. The occasion was the local school fete in England and my daughter had been so overwhelmed by being up on a stage, that she turned her back to the judges. I remember my son (now 35) rolling newspaper rolls of paper into little balls and gluing them onto the mask. In case of inclement weather, the fete was held indoors, in the Clapham Terrace school hall. Stalls competed for decorating ideas, and it was so well organised. People had a lovely day. Today I am comparing these experiences from back in the seventies to today - for, over my back fence, is an Aussie primary school fete....quite different in comparison.

The Wellington Point primary school Easter fete is on right now, over my back garden fence. Spread over two ovals and many classrooms, under colourful tents to protect people from the blazing sunshine, hundreds of families (and me) are enjoying the search for fun, bargains, watching displays, sipping drinks, buying homemade goods, and second-hand bargains. Children are on ferris wheels, slippery dips, climbing rock walls, running helter-skelter all over the place, yelling and laughing with sunblock, shorts and daggy hats on. I didn't buy much this year - some books, magazines and a jar of strawberry jam created by year 4 students. The displays are enhanced by exciting music and announcements over the loud-speaker system, people are sitting on the grassy slopes under the gum trees. A group of red uniforms with drums marches past - older ladies mainly. In one corner of the oval behind my home is a display of dog handling techniques and agility, whilst young people in white uniforms throw each other around on mats and there is highland dancing happening as well. It's a sea of colour and a treat for the senses - the Aussie fete. Tonight there will be a fireworks display after the barbie. I will be walking my two dogs by the bay-side as they are truly terrified when the sky lights up and the fireworks crackle and bang.

Quite a different feel to a fete in Australia compared to my experience of a fete in the UK. They are completely different but the parents are the same everywhere, all trying their best to improve the education of their children and to have fun at the same time.

The Chocolate Cake with a difference

I had to laugh at my 19-year old son's attempt at cooking a chocolate cake, until I tasted it. It was delicious! He used the manse kitchen, not mine, but he made a bit of a mess. I'm assured that he and his friend cleaned it up afterwards. Ummm. I wonder if running into the church next door to the manse, to meditate before mixing the ingredients, helped in the creation of his cake! There are two parts to the following YouTube videos, and they take a while to watch, so if you are interested, these are the links:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Matto90 and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q6Bnvk4_8v

Tennis finals

Thanks to a birthday gift from my four grown kids, I was able to take these pictures over the weekend. A weekend of tennis final matches in the Queensland International Tennis event held at Tennyson (new last year). The weather was hot but no rain, so it was perfect tennis watching weather, and the courts are under cover so we were sheltered from the sun most of the time. Matches were exciting and of a high standard.

The visitor from Gundaroo

New year brought Jim to Queensland for a quick visit and today he returned to NSW. Jim and I go back a long way, in fact we were born in the same hospital five days apart, then shared our high school years at Wagga High School. It was natural that he should include one of his oldest friends in his recent need to 'get away from it all' in a bit of R & R.

We took the City Cat ferry from Bulimba to the city (with the added excitement of my jumping ship after one ferry stop, seasick) eventally arriving at the museum, the modern and contemporary art galleries and Queens Street Mall. Yesterday we drove to the white sandy beach of the Gold Coast at Broadbeach, wandering near a rough sea and swimming in the nearby pool. Before his plane returned him to Gundaroo today, despite the sudden downpour, we enjoyed an Aussie breakfast at Wellington Point park. Look at these black clouds and listen to the easterly winds: