Southern Summer Solstice 2016

Sydney has come alive with purple-blue jacarandas, our annual floral tribute to Dame Edna Everage, so it's time for me to tap out something mildly entertaining and possibly even informative about the year almost passed. I shall make no comment about the recent US presidential election beyond expressing my astonishment at a respected nation so publicly and unashamedly soiling its pants.

Of course things haven't gone all that swimmingly here either unless you're wealthy.  But then the Abbott-Turnbull Government was never elected to represent all Australians or even Australians.

Still on a slightly political note, with Ali the Nissan Pathfinder just a year off voting age we began 2016 with a search for a new car.  Another Nissan, a Mazda or a Subaru all seemed to tick our mid-sized SUV box since ISIS drives Toyotas; something to accommodate two larger blokes who still haul landscaping materials and do a little touring - our last mildly adventurous vehicle before the Prius.  The Subaru Outback came out head and shoulders above the rest and we are absolutely delighted with the choice.  Her number plate is DDH-39H so we named her DeDe Halcyon after the society lesbian from Armistead Maupin’s ‘Tales of the City’ - the link after the next paragraph explains further.

Our first big trip was to Melbourne and DeDe excelled herself.  Being a computer with wheels, the trip was an excellent opportunity to work out why things beep, flash and perform a multitude of other mysterious functions that are best not investigated in traffic.  We had a great catch up my old friend Michael at Rutherglen where we also bought wine.  Then we stayed with Uncle Russell in Melbourne and Anne in Canberra on the way home where we enjoyed good dose of capital culture and our favorite restaurant in the whole world.  Tales of the Subaru - Southbound 2016

We visited Anne again in September and spent half a day at Floriade which is more memorable for pain than flowers.  I fell down some stairs in Melbourne a few month earlier which jarred the bejesus out of my still problematic teeth and that coincided with the beginning of an ongoing bout of plantar fasciitis in my right heel so a walking stick is now my sometimes companion.  Tales of the Subaru - Floriade 2016

Speaking of falls, Peter had eight weekly sessions at the Hornsby Hospital Falls Clinic where he graduated youngest in his class.  We’re both getting older which for me is a pain in the foot and for Peter a pain in the head although not nearly as bad a pain as he suffered prior to his neurosurgery.

The Russians have discovered that gravity on the Moon is not a constant; it varies slightly from place to place which makes my theory about personal gravitational fields a little more convincing.  I suggest that gravity in our immediate personal space intensifies with age.  This accounts for an increased incidence of dropping things; overall sagginess; and falls in general.  I could also mention incontinence but that would just give rise to a yet another chorus of "Too much information!"

Peter had his third neuropsychological assessment earlier in the year and that’s not a process you want to endure too often.  The aim was to see if there had been any further degeneration and the good news is no.  There’s been some improvement in his language area which is due in no small degree to the efforts of Linda and the speech pathology team at St Joseph’s Hospital, Auburn who are marvelous!

Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia received a large conscience salving donation about that time after I spent a great deal of money on one of our chooks.  Poor Hazel wasn't a well woman and required two nights in hospital for a gynecological procedure - or was it cloacalogical?  She's now sparking on all plugs as are a couple of African women who benefitted quite directly from her chooky women's problems.

Whilst on the feathered, furry and otherwise members of the family, Fluffy, Uranus and Baby Blue are all fine; and Kevin, who is now going on 17, is doing extremely well with a little bit of pharmaceutical assistance.  Prednisone three times a week has made all the difference.  He's also become a little more user friendly in his old age, something we neither take for granted nor approach without due caution.  We do love our Boy though and he does love his two Dards - completely on his own terms.

And speaking of two dards, or two mums, we were pleased the Senate blocked the legislation for Abbott's intentionally decisive same-sex marriage plebiscite which was non-binding on Parliament and quite likely unconstitutional anyway.  The money can now be spent on something much more appropriate while Malcolm Turnbull makes a last ditch effort to locate his missing balls and put the matter directly to Parliament which has responsibility for it under the Australian Constitution.

Jan and Tony are well - falls aside - and had a lovely time in the Canadian Rockies and Alaska mid-year.  They must have been bitten by a travel bug while they were away because they've just returned home from 11 days on Norfolk Island and are booked on a cruise around the UK and Ireland next year just two days after we return home from our return visit to England with Scotland and Iceland tacked on this time for good measure.  It's going to be a tag-team event.

We travelled northward mid-year to visit Shara and Tom in Armidale then lovely Aunty Joan on the Gold Coast.  We stayed at my father's old family home in Nimbin en route.  It's now a B&B which in that part of Northern NSW can as easily mean Bong & Breakfast as Bed & Breakfast.  Grandma would be horrified by that but our indulgence at the lovely old Queenslander did not extend beyond a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc one night and a lively Shiraz the next.

Whilst on the Gold Coast we also caught up with Shara's sister, my old friend and colleague Anstee or Gillian to most; as well as the gorgeous Annie Green who also lives up that way these days.  We had a lovely couple of nights on the river at Port Macquarie on the way home and visited my late great mate Dave's mum Noelene before dropping in on Peter's cousin Warren and his wife Lorna a little further south.  Tales of the Subaru - Northbound 2016

We visited the McFoleys, Cate and Brian, at Batemans Bay and they visited us which is always fun.  Cate and I were great mates at university and have decades of shared history.  We also managed a couple of visits with Peter’s good friend John en route.  Peter and John worked together at the Water Board a lifetime ago and travelled North America and Europe in about 1980 so there’s a lot of shared history there for them as well.

I now have four kinds of dentists - an endodontist, a prosthodontist, a periodontist and of course a regular dentist who bought me two shirts when she visited Hawaii recently.  Now who has a dentist who does that and how First World are my problems?  And on that topic, I got a clean bill of health from my new cardiologist which is the vogue medical specialist for the over 60s - that and a proctologist (for men, at least).  Peter had another barium swallow this year to check for further degeneration given his family history of oculopharyngeal dystrophy and whilst there has been a slight change he appears to have escaped the worst of it - touch wood!

Teeth, hearts, throats, bums and travel aside, the house, and the garden in particular, have kept us busy and that’s not a bad thing.  There’s a lot of joy in a garden, particularly when your chooks and cat-shaped-being keep you company and you have lovely next door neighbors as we do. 

Stay tuned for a string of new travel blogs in 2017.  We're Cotswolds, London and Scotland bound and then it’s off to Iceland for a little puffin spotting with our good friend Lin and her cousin Margaret.  The final week is still being planned but we’ll be visiting Lara, Nikos and Yiannis in Cambridge before we head home for a very well earned rest.

Happy Solstice et al to one and all

Tread lightly upon the Earth this coming year

And give a little more than you take

Much love

Glenn, Peter (Lyle to some) and Kevin

PS:  We almost made it through the year without further incident but then I rushed Peter off to the emergency department last week with stroke-like symptoms.  There went three days in hospital where two different nutters kept us entertained with no less than five major psychotic episodes between them.  It was like being back at school except for the security guards.  Peter's 3T MRI showed no new damaged so everyone was at a loss to explain what happened but no diagnosis is better than a bad one.