Update

As of Saturday afternoon, make that six.

AS

Max is here

Max has graced us with his presence.

However, one of his less enduring features is turning the garden over in a search for beetles and the collection of a large jar of snails now lying comatose in the 'fridge. And the cats have taken off into hiding lest they have their tails pulled and hair removed.

He's also scored three model cars in two days, which might be a record.

AS

Rain!

A miracle has happened after a long dry period. It has rained over the last three days and the landscape has greende up instantly. It's too early to say that the drought is over, but it will be if follow-up rains come as promised.

AS

Appointment

Yesterday was a good day. Not only did I get a clean bill of health, but I heard via the grapevine that I have been appointed and Adjunct Professor for a period of at least three years.

That's useful because it provides me with access to library and IT facilities, office space, secretarial support, a lap-top computer and technical backup, stationery supplies, and technical support in working up consultancy and research grant applications.

I'm actually working on an $80K consultancy application today with a business school colleague, Bernice Kotey (an Afro-American). The money is coming from an organisation called the Cotton Catchment Communities Cooperative Research Centre (CCCCRC), but I know next to nothing about producing cotton. The project involves extensive travel in interesting parts of NSW and Queensland.

AS

Terminal Illness?

I was riding my bike furiously on a couple of days last week and felt some strong chest pains. On Thursday I landed an urgent doctor's consultation with great trepidation, but I must say that my young doctor, Vanessa Lloyd, has reassuring presence.

I'm sorry to disappoint anyone looking for a sizeable inheritance! She commanded an immediate ECT scan, which turned up zero problems. So she booked a session with Dracula on Friday morning. It was a nice omen to know that I'm part owner of the pathology business extracting my blood. Well, I got the results back yesterday and they revealed a great rounnd zero. In fact, I'm in the best of shape, which is hardly surprising in that I regularly peddle 21 km on a hilly course in an hour. That exceeds the standards for the local cycling club.

So, what occurred? Well, I think the pains resulted from riding fast into strong and very cold winds wearing very little. No, it wasn't the local variant of world nude cycling day, but it may well have been as I was only wearing shorts and a singlet.

AS

Flickr First post

I've just posted to http://www.flickr.com/search/people/?q=Wayward+Rambler&m=names some 20 digital photos of New Zealand. Have a look if you wish at some of the sights we saw over a 2 week period. I'm also putting together a video of the trip.

AS

Coming Home

It's only 5 days to the arrival of Beck and Max for a three day flying (literally) visit. We're suffering serious Max withdrawal symptoms after the 2 week visit to New Zealand and hope we're not vanishing from his radar.

Perhaps not, we have periodic discussions with him on the phone and I suspect he will run to hug us as usual. Anyway, there's a bit of a buzz about the household just now and we're rushing off shortly to buy a booster seat for the car.

Here he is crooning at his third birthday party!

AS

Further Education

Both Emily and Rebecca are considering further education at the University of New England. Em wants to do the Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics (which is linked to geography and planning in my new school of Behavioural Cognitive and Social Sciences - BCSS). Lingusitics is less about learning a language and related culture and much more about the scientific (behavioural, psychological and statistical) analysis of language.

Beck is thinking about taking the Masters of Natural Resources, which will be useful for her strategic planning work.

It would be great to have both studying here, although I'm not sure we will see too much of them! The MAAL is entirely on-line and can be taken anywhere in the world - including Baltimore. Indeed, most of the students are over-seas. How about enrolling yourselves? It would give you an excuse to visit us.

AS

Flickr

I now have a Flickr account - got to keep up with the times. Nothing to show yet, so I'll post details when I've hoisted on board some picture of our ramble around NZ.

AS

Shenandoah NP

Em and G have just returned from a weekend camping in the Shenandoah NP. It seems that they came close to being eaten (?) in their tent one night by a local Ursus americanus .

Well, they shouldn't have pitched the damn thing on the edge of the campground right next to the undergrowth!

For more on this escape read: http://gintheus.blogspot.com/ .

AS

Em in the USA

We've been entertained for the last two months with some excellent reporting from Emily as she's set up home in Baltimore and travelled to Washington and New York and many places in between. She writes well and is very perceptive about US society.

So, if you're interested in a good read try logging on to: http://emintheusa.blogspot.com/ .

AS

Bridge night

I play bridge on Tuesday night wherever possible and generally have a great time. Last night was an exception. I rarely have enjoyed a session less. The deals were difficult, with partner and I having lots of misfits, bidding and play misunderstandings, or opponents somehow landing on their feet with wild bidding. Even so, we came in second. I guess that such hands are difficult for all, not just us.

Roll on the end of this month when we move into our new clubhouse. The renovations are complete inside, but the car park and ramps are work in progress. Word has it that the premises are brilliantly lit and temperature control is excellent. Better still, we've bought really comfortable chairs, unlike the ones we endured last night. They were a triumph of looks over comfort. I even have my own office space in the club-house as Chief Director.

AS

Is this retirement?

Is this retirement? I now seem to be working harder than when I was head of school, getting into work some time after 8 am, returning home late afternoon, and skipping lunch in between. Still, it's a ball. On Monday - just one day, I gave a well received seminar, sent the final materials for an article in a tier 1 international journal, discussed future projects on labour market conditions in north-west NSW with a colleague, and was invited to give a lecture at the University of Queensland. Yesterday, I mainly worked on my paper on Australia's housing affordability for the State of Australian Cities Conference in Adelaide in November and on my current Australian Research Council Grant (with others) on change and adjustment in the agriculture heartland. And today, I'm working up a grant application with the Cotton CRC! As Ned Kelly famously said, "that's life".

Tying the knot

Yesterday, we attended a wedding. Kenneth Whitty, the groom, is the son of Joan and Jim, our - well mainly Dot's - long-time friends. I've known Ken since he was about 3 years old or so and part of Emily's play-group. It was made all the more interesting as the couple had to balance the ceremony with looking after their 11 month old daughter, Ella. The civil ceremony was beautifully done by a local celebrant.

We turned up expecting not to know many of the c.140 people in attendance. Of course, we knew the groom's parents and sat at the top table with them along with another good friend of Dot's, Lorraine. Events got more interesting when I discovered that I knew the bride's father from soccer playing and refereeing days. Then came the stunning discovery that Dot was related to the bride, Lisa, via a circuitous route. The bride's grandfather was a first cousin to Dot's mother. We realised this possibility when an elderly gentleman announced his name (Wilfred Burling) and his home town (Inverell). Now, Dot senior's maiden name was Burling and she was born in Warialda near Inverell and we have Wilfred's book on Burling family history sitting on our shelves! Then a few others turned up and introduced themselves as knowing or knowing about Dot.

So, it was a very pleasant and witty (sorry about the pun) day, with the ceremony held on a property just outside Armidale. A 'property' is a farm in other parlance. Australian weddings are becoming less formal at a rapid rate of knots and I knew that I would not be out of place with designer jeans, an open-neck shirt and no jacket. I even wanted to wear designer brown shoes with a roughed up texture. Dot wanted me looking smarter, so I made some small adjustments only to find that my original conception would have been quite acceptable! I've decided to put a clause in my will that anyone wearing a suit to my funeral will be barred from participating. There's already a clause funding a wake.

AS

New Zealand Odyssey

I've been off air for a long time because Dot and I have been travelling around the North Island of New Zeland. I had a 4 day conference in Auckland, but added another 10 days on the road. We visited Northland for three days before the conference and the east coast for the remainder.

Northland was brilliant. It was the area first settled by Europeans and the Bay of Islands (named by Cook in 1769) was picture post-card. We stayed at Paihia overlooking the bay. Fortunately, the weather was mostly tolerable and we visited the Waitangi treaty grounds, Russell, Kerikeri and other places. look them up on the web. We also took to the water and sailed out Cape Brett to see the hole in the rock in pretty heavy Pacific swell. Apparently Cook set foot on some of the islands in the bay. Another attraction were the remnant Kauri forests. The Kauri is one of the world's longest lived trees and also one of the largest. We saw one specimen that was four times as wide as Rebecca is tall - a monster.

The east coast was just as scenic, if not more so. We started with the mountainous Coromandel Peninsula with its endless sandy bays, forests, waterfalls, harbours, and little villages. Highlights included a trip on a railway up the hills behind Coromandel - constructed by an eccentric potter to mine his raw materials (clay); Cathedral Cove - reached by a beautiful coastal footpath; Hot Water Beach; the old mining town of Waihi and the waterfall near Paeroa. At HWB, nearly boiling water lies close to the beach surface where visitors dig large holes in the sand. The holes fill with very hot water (mixed to taste with cool pacific cean water) and people lie down in the water for a sort of Japanese bath. I found a vacated hole and spent 15-20 minutes luxuriating in hot water. Perhaps 40 or more other groups were doing the same!

Then we went to the Bay of Plenty (named because Cook replenished his fleet there in 1769). Maurice and Iris live at Tauranga (Maurice is mum's cousin) and we spent a day with them. During the stay, I climbed Mount Maunganui in a wild gale and driving rain, but the view from the top was spectacular. From there we overnighted at Whakatane (pr. Fakatane) in the hope of voyaging to White Island the following day. White Island is a permanently active volcano 50 km offshore! Unfortunately, the gales of the previous day had left a huge ocean swell and the trip was cancelled.

So, after looking for some geocaches, we headed off to Gisborne on Poverty Bay through wonderful mountain scenery. Cook landed there too, but angry Maori fended off the landing party - hence the name Poverty Bay. Gisborne was pleasant but not spectacular. We pushed on to Napier and I think Dot wasn't expecting much different to Gisborne. She had a shock. Napier was destroyed by a massive earthquake in c. 1930 and then rebuild largely in .... Art Deco style. In fact, it's the Art Deco capital of the world, with more buildings than anywhere else constructed in that style. And I'm converted to Art Deco. If I were to design a new house, it would be in Art Deco style. Go on-line and key Napier Art Deco into Google. You'll see what I mean. Modern architecture isn't in the same league. We had a lovely time there before returning to Auckland via Taupo.

Taupo is on the boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates and is surrounded by volcanic and associated activity. Rotorua is up the road - with its bubbling mud pools and geysers. Mts Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe are across lake Taupo and the former erupted while we were in NZ. Extend the line to Matata on the coast, where there was a Rchter 4 earthquake the day before we went through it! And extend ti further out to sea and you get to White Island. Taupo even generates its electricity by pumping steam out of the ground and sending it direct to turbines! New Zealand has three other names. The Maori called it Aotearoa, which means a highly descriptive "land of the long white cloud". More colloquially, Australians call NZ the "East Islands" (they call us te "West Islands") and the locals call them the "Shaky Isles".

So, that's our trip. We want to go back and any of you who visit us might like to come along.

AS