2011 Annual Report

THE 2011 ANNUAL REPORT

The annual report is a little late this year. Usually I am prompted by a similar letter from an old, well older than me ex-work colleague whose yearly letter has not arrived. Alan where are you? However missives have arrive from the “Institute of Sarre” so any avoidance of the year in retrospect is over. So as in previous ramblings read what you may and skim the rest. Hopefully the occasional picture will be of interest. This won’t be a long read.

So this year many of you may have seen my Picasa 365 photo project ‘ThisMobileYear2011’. Taking and selecting a photo a day for an entire year has given me some insights to myself, has reminded me to cherish every day I live and has kept me connected with people I am at risk of losing contact with. At some stage during the day I need to have the eyes wide open and see the world around me and take something in. It has been thoroughly enjoyable having Lynwen doing a similar project using a blog ‘Day to day View’ to express her world. Not sure whether I will do it next year. Special mention must also go to Karen in Zimababwe ‘Imbabala A blog about life at Imbabala Safari Lodge’. May find a new 365 project but a highly recommend the experience. Beats Facebook!

My work life took another turn this year as I have started working for TAFESA Regional in Mt Barker 4 days a week lecturing and developing courses online in ‘Career Development’ and ‘Management (learning) to name a couple. It is all new and exciting. I am working with a great team of thinkers and educators. The future is exciting as every day is new and full of learning. I am still able to ride there in the morning via Aldgate, Bridgewater and Hahndorf and return via Mylor and Aldgate Valley road.

What of the Family? Ady was fortunate to make it to Southern Africa with Betty her mother to Debra’s wedding and spend a few days with Karen at Imbabala Lodge in Zimbabwe. Morning meditations, listening to Jack Kornfield and Yoga and cycling wherever possible.

Ella made the big move into a share house in March this year and has survived the move, studying and working part time. She celebrated her 21^st birthday over 3 days spread across Adelaide, starting in the Western suburbs on Friday, to Rundle Street on Saturday night to our house on Sunday. Great party/ies. This time next year she will be a qualified teacher. Great determination.

Mikaela has had quite a dramatic year to say the least. From being in the mosh pit at the Falls Festival last New Years Eve, to starting an Advance Diploma of Acting at SA Arts, to having her appendix removed 3 weeks ago, to lounging on a beach in Goa in India as I write! The rest of the Family is in recovery and debrief mode. Talk about all the World being a stage!

Other Highlights.

• Womad in March and the Womad Earthstation in October
• Long Bike rides like the ‘Ride like Crazy’ and ‘Tour Down Under’ and Saturday mornings with cycle buddy Chris.
• Our garden in spring and Autumn
• Growing raspberries
• Cadel Evans winning Le Tour

World Events:

• Arab spring
• Occupy Wall Street
• The increased involvement of youth in world affairs

Film and TV: ‘The Eye of the Storm’, ‘The Slap’, ‘Go .back to where you came from’ and not much else’

Holidays and travel:

• Ruthie’s Mulberry Farm a Yankalilla for needy weekend escapes with rich conversations and laughter.
• The winter escape to Noosa at Rogers and James house in Sunshine beach.
• Seeing the Archibald Exhibition in Sydney
• Port Elliot this Xmas

Frustrations: Possums under the Floorboards, Fearful and frantic leadership. Politicians who ignore what is for the common good and are driven by greed and self interest. Climate change deniers and Collingwood supporters. People who retreat to the past when confronted with the future. Andrew Bolt and Christopher Pearson.

Books: ‘The Great Disruption’ by Paul Gilding. Everything by Alex Miller, Ken Robinson ‘The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything’

Music

The desert music of Tinariwen, Laura Marling, Fleet Foxes,

Farewells: Margaret Minogue my mum’s twin sister. Margaret Scrymgour and cricket theosophist Peter Roebuck.

2012 What Next?

• · Future Thinking: ‘We’re going to spend the rest of our lives in the future. Therefore, if we want to be practical, we must focus our attention on the trends and ideas that are shaping the future.’ World Future Society

• Culling. Getting rid of unnecessary 'stuff".

• The ALIA conference in Nova Scotia next June.

• Resurgent Crows.

Christmas 2010

Annual Report 2010

Hi all.

This is of a general nature and no offence is taken if you don’t read it but it hopefully keeps us in contact especially those who we haven’t caught up with of late. This is Year 1 of no children in school. Strange feeling as the world has changed to a new paradigm. Daily timetables became less erratic and strangely predictable, no major deadlines, dramas or exams. No rushing out the door at the last minute to catch buses to get to lessons or all night editing or writing sessions. Well not exactly. Ella still has her studies and Mikaela had auditions but the intensity of school days has passed. Tick one for the parents, job well done.

Mikaela received her certificate at Goverment House for a 20 in Drama in Year 12 SACE. Her score of 95.7 was evidence of what can occur when one applies oneself, when one is focussed, determined and badly wanted to achieve. There was many a joke that it was a mistake and she should have received 75.9. For a while there, she wouldn’t answer the phone or open mail in case it was the SACE Board apologizing for their mistake. None such message ever arrived. When she said she wanted a gap year, we could only agree, job well done.

Ella on the other hand completed her second year of her B. Ed at UNISA as well as working at Cleverdicks, Tutoring, Babysitting, teaching Drama at the Hills Youth Theatre and working in a call Centre. Not one for a quiet life! In amongst all that she managed to watch all her favourite TV series and movies and read a number of books. She had a successful teaching prac and is counting down the days to her graduation. A holiday is well deserved.

The year for us has been one of travel and umbrellas. We started the year with a 6 day Houseboat holiday out of Morgan with Roger and Kerrie and their boys. 40 degree days, fine food and drink, Kayaks, water and plenty of laughter. Discovered a new board game called “Cranium”. Rumours abound that it caused the war in Afghanistan and led to Kevin Rudd’s sacking. Avoid it even if you see it going cheap at a garage sale.

WOMAD this year lasted 4 days which made the event more enjoyable. Most memorable moment was the performance of Xavier Rudd who had the entire crowd dancing in heavy rain which threatened to derail the event. On finishing his performance the rain stopped and the sun came out, A magical moment.

After spending Easter in Goolwa, Ady and I did a road trip to Sydney through a locust plague. Messy! Staying with Steve in Darlinghurst was great as we could walk into the city through the Botanical Gardens or through a number of streets bubbling with life very different to Adelaide. It took months to get rid of the smell of locusts from the car. Even vacuuming the engine bay made little difference

April was also the time that Ady, her Mum, twin brother David, and his wife Lisa took a boat trip from Amsterdam to Vienna via the Rhine and Danube. They assured me they had a terrible time and missed me terribly. Asif! Ady’s mum Betty had such a great time she booked another trip for herself and Ady from Lisbon to Paris in October which included boat journeys on the Doro, Rhone and Sone and Seine rivers. They again reiterated their boredom and that all rivers and cities in Europe looked the same. “Squint and Paris looks no different to the Torrens and the Adelaide skyline”.

My big plan this year was to avoid the heart of winter by fleeing to Laos, Cambodia and Thailand for 6 weeks in June and July. Little did I know that Mother Nature extended Winter till December. Ady, Mikaela and I flew to Vientiane in Laos via a day in KL and then spent the next 3 weeks travelling through the country then into Siem Reap in Cambodia where we picked up Ella from the airport. The next few days were spent travelling around all of the archaeological sites which were quite amazing. We spent a couple weeks in Cambodia before spending a week on an island in Thailand called Koh Chang. It was a brilliant holiday and I am so grateful that we can still holiday together as a family.

Returning to Adelaide was a bit of a shock. Rain and cold, the Crows were finally winning a few games and the wet weather ensured quite a number of bike punctures. To cap it of Collingwood won the Grand Final and the Redlegs made it to one, to just miss out. Bassett, the next coach of the Crows?

October was a time for a quick jaunt to the Sunshine coast to stay with Roger and James and it rained there as well. At least it was warm. There is something quite idyllic about the lifestyle there. Mikaela and I spent a weekend in Melbourne and to my surprise it was warm. I loved walking through all the galleries in Fed Square, finding a small cafe in a side street to watch all the faces in the street. Melbourne has become a much more cosmopolitan city in the last ten years.

Spring time in Stirling was stunning this year however it was wet and cold. Everything has grown and flowered beautifully. This is code for weeds and whipper snippering, back ache and visits to the chiropractor.

To cap off the year Mikaela went through a number of auditions with different institutions and has been accepted into a 3 year acting course at the ACA, Adelaide College of the Arts which is so exciting.

Other Highlights:

• Kath my 87 year old mother going to the ‘Dark Side’ and purchasing an IPad, getting connected and even sending emails.
• The girls have finally switched to Triple J and given nasally spoken, bogan, commercial radio DJs the flick.
• 5000 plus kilometres on the bike.
• Building Ady a new road bike.
• Finally completing the kitchen upgrade.
• Tean’s gourmet Laksa paste.
• Digital Radio
• My Samsung touch phone with a reasonable camera.

Lowlights

• Too many bike punctures.
• The election, dull, boring, uninspiring and closed-minded politicians.
• Paranoia about Illegal Boat people when the vast majority of illegal’s are people overstaying their visas. This is important to note as most of them are Poms who probably stayed on to be part of the Barmy Army.
• The Weekend Australian except the music section.
• Andrew Bolt, Piers Akerman and Christopher Pearson not developing Dementia and still getting airspace.
• Trying to get rid of the possums under our floorboards (smelly).
• Not enough sunny days.
• Collingwood.
• Wet socks when riding home.

Bo Books

Th The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. The Room by Emma Donogue. Numerous travel books including A fortune teller told me by Tiziano Terzani.

Films

• The Hurt Locker
• The Ghost Writer
• The Town
• Avatar

Was not a good year for film

and Music.

• LCD Soundsystem ‘This is Happening’
• Robert Plant, 'Band of Joy'
• Peter Gabriel ‘Scratch my Back’

Well that’s it. Happy new year to you. May your next year be energetic and rewarding and full of new adventures experiences and laughter.

Regards

Alister on behalf of Ady, Ella and Mikaela.

Christmas 2009

This could only be in Australia!

Greetings All

I have just received Xmas letters from a couple of great people I used to work with (Nick and Stace) and realised what a fantastic way to end the year on a reflective note. I am always too lazy to send Xmas cards and never have enough time to catch up with everyone. This is a way of making up for all those conversations that I didn’t have this year and a reminder that I look forward to the next time we catch up and celebrate our lives, families and friends.

As this letter is going to a broad group, some of the names may be irrelevant but read and interpret at will. When I think of this year nothing much appears but gradually all that has happened unfolds and I realise that I now know why I had not enough time to get everything done. Rather than sending this as a document I thought it better to add to my Blog site which has long been ignored, as a means of keeping abreast of web technologies. So here goes.

Well I have survived my 2^nd year back as a primary teacher. The last time I was in a primary school was 1990 and that was in a special class. One of my greatest challenges has been to learn all 500 plus student names as I teach all them computing during the week. In those 2 years I have had 4 principals which has made it difficult to cement a direction for how I apply and integrate ICTs but it seems to have worked out well. When I arrived there were about 50 computers in the school. Now there are about 130 and Interactive whiteboards in 3/4’s of the classrooms so it’s been a rapid rise in technology. I have added a lot of new software including Kahootz, Comic Life, and Groovy music. I bought a class set of digital cameras and filled the network with movie files much to my techies disgust. Have I enjoyed it? The kids are great and are very receptive to learning and being creative. I had a lot more to do with the school community as I was heavily involved in the school’s 90th Anniversary. It’s great place to work, great staff, students and parents and a brilliant coffee shop across the road http://www.coffeecraft.com.au/home/ . I give them a plug as they roast sell and grind a wide range of coffees all Fair Trade or Rainforest and are the most passionate coffee lovers have ever met. So yes it was worth making the move.

An added benefit has been that I ride from Stirling to Black Forest down the old freeway up to 3 times a week. It’s a fantastic way to start the day, beautiful scenery, wildlife, sunrises and a range of weather that can only remind me how great it is to be alive.

Cycling has kept me sane. I have managed to do a 120k ride to Victor Harbour in March with Bicycle SA, a couple of rides to Carrickalinga, numerous long rides through the hills and 80k rides on Saturday mornings with Cobwebs. All up I have ridden about 8000 ks with half a dozen punctures and one broken chain. In the “things to do before I die” category, I rode from the bottom of the Corkscrew road to the top, one of the steepest climbs in SA. To my enjoyment Ady has taken up riding as well and is planning to do the Victor Harbour ride next year.

Home renovations are nearing completion. The last of the kitchen will be completed this new year, the dining area is done and I just finished the entertainment centre. It’s amazing what one can do with IKEA products. In fact there are websites dedicated to such projects. I must post mine. The garden continues to grow and recover from the previous dry years. Only the one tree fell this year and unfortunately wiped out a rhododendron that I had nurtured for about ten years.

Ady has worked most of the year at Bridgewater primary wearing many hats as well as relief teaching. It is a unique school where every student has an individual learning plan and creativity uniqueness are cherished. Suited Ady perfectly. As mentioned she has been bitten by the cycling bug and gets out often with me and her cycle sister Lynwne. Her memories of this year is best summed up as Year 12 support mama. More about this later

Ella has had a year of highs and one low. Her year started with getting 89.6 for Year 12. We were extremely happy and proud of her as the whole year had been quite stressful. She then delivered us the news that she was going to undertake a Bachelor of Education at UniSA. We tried everything to talk her out of it but she was adamant. Have Ady and I failed as parents and as teachers? To be honest she is well suited to the calling and has had a fantastic year with excellent results and brilliant Prac teaching reports. At the end of January she and her cousin flew to Cape Town and stayed with our good friend Karen and her family before heading off for a trip through South Africa Namibia, Botswana before ending up in Victoria Falls in Zambia. Whilst she was doing this I had to attend UniSa and enrol her. I sure looked out of place in the auditorium sitting amongst 200 19 and 20 year old girls and a handful boys. She has worked all year baby sitting as well working at Cleverdicks Gift shop in Mitcham and Burnside. Her low was learning that driving isn’t as easy as you think by knocking out a light post at the entrance to Stirling on a vicious winter’s night and writing off her car. Luckily her only injury was a bruised ego.

The issue that most defined our year was Mikaela attempting and completing year 12. We had wanted her to do it over 2 years but right from the beginning she insisted that she was going to do well and get a good score. Ady enlisted Ysha to help her with language rich subjects and Julie Keast to assist her with her Art work. Anne Marie also came along for the ride with the art work as well. It meant there were always extra mouths to feed and beds to make. Miky took over the whole house with scripts, drafts, paintings and photographs. I set up a Bike trainer in the lounge and her bookwork took over the entire dining area and office. She applied herself for the entire year hardly taking the foot of the pedal. I learnt never to ask how an exam went (I’d rather walk on hot coals) or how her painting was going. When the results arrived we were gob smacked! 95.7 which included 20 for Drama and 19 for English and Art 19. Her results showed that if one is determined to succeed and puts in the effort, reward awaits. Never in her entire schooling had she gained grades anywhere near this and it will be a constant reminder to her and anyone who witnessed this, that hard work pays.

Special thanks must go to Ysha and all her efforts with Miky. She has been her living elf-mother. She was present at her birth applying acupressure to Ady and absorbed every wrong turn and emotional breakdown during this year. Her tutorship was fantastic to witness and it was a highlight of my year to see the value of mentoring. Ysha was so taken by Generation C’s (connected) thinking that she read every book and article she could find. She believes that at 67 she more in common with this generation than any before it. We had many late nigh discussions on how this generation works and thinks and this has benefited my understanding of how kids learn. She was a great interpreter of Mikaela’s thinking and helped her deal with her dyslexia positively. A gap year awaits Miky.

So what is there to write about?

• Tour Down Under in Stirling
• WOMAD was the brilliant weekend it always is. It is like going around the world in 3 days. A grand celebration of Multiculturalism, diversity and being Australian without out all that flag waving jingoism.
• Weekend and Short get aways to Kingston, Carrickalinga, Walkers Flat, Noosa and Goolwa
• Bike riding
• The Crows when they were winning and the direction they are heading.
• No more kids in school.
• Ady’s fund raising dinner for the orphanage in Puna at the Om Centre which raised about $2500.
• Not a big year for reading but enjoyed the Vintner’s Luck
• Film’s Gran Torino, Up and Moon.

What does 2010 offer?

• No Kids in school
• More value time with Ady
• A family trip Asia “Four go mad in Thailand Malaysia and Cambodia”
• Discovering more cycle routes through the Adelaide Hills.
• Reading some of the classics starting with Don Quixote and Great Expectations
• Crows Premiership
• More film going, theatre and live music.
• No more renovations
• Catching up with all of you I haven’t seen for a while

That’s it. Enough. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year.

Stay in touch

An image gallery summing up the year is at http://picasaweb.google.com/alister.davies/ImagesOf2009

Saigon

What a great vibrant city full of life hustle and bustle.

Being a Sunday there are a nuimber of wedding happening and the photo shoots happen at the museums. I just love this posey on the front of the wedding car
Uncle Ho infront of the party headquarters which was once the Hotel DeVille
A typical Traffic scene
The very friendly spotless Kim Hotel in the middle of Backpacker land.

Hoi An

Well we have finally made it Saigon after a few pleasant days in Hoi An. We were lucky to get reasonable weather there as the girls got into serious shopping especially in the shoe department.
Hoi An is one of special places that seems to have it's own unique energy. Very friendly people, great pace of life and an excellent plce to sip Vietnamese coffee and watch life go by.

Onto Saigon

Xmas, Sapa and back to Hanoi

Well we are getting used to the routines of Vietnam. Tourist = $ therefore, Rip-em-off! After all it is the international tourism code. Now that we have acclimatised minus a few Dollars we have settled down to enjoying ourself more. Santa with Vodka in hand kept us merry on Xmas Eve. On Boxing day we travelled by night train to the mountains west of Hanoi near China to and area called Sapa where a number of ethnic minorities live. Beatiful misty hillsides covered in rice paddies. Wonderful friendly people.

Caught up with old friends Mark, Vivien and kids unexpectedly. they checked into the room next to us.

We arrived back at Hanoi 5.30am and walked down to the lake and were overawed by the activity. Tai Chi, Badminton shuttlecock, unusual exercise routines, people strolling in the PJs. Found a nice cafe by the lake and just slowly welcomed the morning.

Halong Bay

Just Returned from Halong Bay. Discovered many of my digital camera images are corrupted. Bring back slide film!