Written by Michael.
This time of the year finds us winding down a little more than usual after another relaxing year spending more time at home and enjoying Gold Coast life with our friends.
Our major news is Margot's retirement in July. Some of her senior colleagues at the Gold Coast City Council just made one too many poor decisions that affected her infrastructure and facilities management position. Despite high pressure and repeated entreaties to reconsider she gave them a couple of months notice and they appointed a successor who overlapped by a few weeks. Her send off was heartfelt and extremely well attended which made her feel much appreciated.
For the last few months she has been de-stressing and
relaxing to the full. Her family history research has consumed a great
deal of her time. We now have over 35,000 members on our wider family
tree at the time of writing, the earliest being born in 1615. Although
her new genealogy software can cope with this large tree, it can not all
be converted to into a form for publishing on the web. We still have to
make do with the web family
tree from her old software. Margot is also
now able to be at home to manage our major painting and garden projects
on which we are embarked. We are having the house painted inside and
out, but work is being continually delayed by problems with contractors.
Fortunately she is used to these delays from her years at council! I
continue to enjoy my work at Bond Uni although we are as ever short of
students in computing. Somewhat fortuitously my Vice-Chancellor of all
people discovered that a PhD student and I made the first recorded
use of the word 'weblog' in 1995 for our online electronic meeting
system. Blogs are now an exceedingly popular communications medium and I
am a keen blogger myself. However our web software in 1995 was only a
precursor to a blog at best. Seeing Margot so happy in retirement is
giving me second thoughts myself. There have been recent major changes
to the superannuation tax laws in Australia. Making the most of these I
am now financially at least in 'transition to retirement' as far as the
tax office is concerned. Maybe this is an omen. In our travels we had
some enjoyable short breaks and a couple of longer stays at various
locations in Australia this year. Our first was a return drive to Wagga
Wagga for a special software development symposium that I attended last
year. We stayed at several interesting new places both on the outward
and inward journey. As well we met up with several old friends while
staying at The Entrance on the NSW Central Coast for a few days.
It looks like we will make the same journey again next year, but this
time we will travel via Canberra to view the newly erected plaque on the
Roll of Honour for my great uncle Robert who was a casualty at Gallipoli
in 1915. As I write Margot has literally just discovered the embarkation
record of his departure on the HMAT Euripides from Sydney on 20 October
1914. Of course we celebrated Margot's retirement in July with an
indulgent weekend at Noosa in its famous up-market hotel although we had
occasion to question its luxury status. However, this seemed to bear
fruit unexpectedly in our few days in Sydney staying on Darling Harbour
in the same hotel chain. On our arrival we were upgraded without charge
to
a high-floor luxury suite with beautiful harbour
views! This year we seem to have made a habit of staying in high
places. We stayed at Montville in the ranges west of the Sunshine Coast
north of Brisbane, a return trip Cloud's End Cottage in the Dividing
Range in northern NSW and Sacred Mountain near Coffs Harbour, again in
NSW. Amazingly our second stay at Cloud's End mirrored the first in that
again we suffered a violent storm with
hailstones the size of cricket balls. Fortunately the landlord had
replaced the roof on the insurance claim after our first visit, and the
new roof was much better able to take the pounding of the hail.
We will probably have a quiet lead up to and including Christmas. Then will then fly away for a week in which to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. We hope that you have an enjoyable festive season, and send you our very best wishes for a happy and prosperous new year.
Margot and Michael
December 2007
mrees <at> bigpond.net.au
Breakfast at Sacred Mountain near Coffs Harbour, NSW, April 2007
Our own road! Near Dorrigo, NSW, January 2007
A happy retiree on her retirement day, July 2007
Surfers Paradise north to Brisbane from Q1, Australia's tallest residential building, November 2007