Yuletide Greetings From the Sunshine Coast

Night before last the coast had 95mm of rain. What a lovely Christmas present. Still in drought, but with the prospect of the break coming sooner rather than later, it feels very good to be alive.

Our new apartment complex has an enormous underground water storage area, resulting in loads of water to put on gardens, wash cars and fill the swimming pool. Even a trip to Toowoomba last week for my ex boss's retirement farewell party saw one double taking as one glanced at the surrounding landscape covered in various shades of green. We still have to have LOADS more heavy rain to fill the dams, but the ground surface around South East Queensland is looking pretty lush and green.

I sincerely hope you and yours are in for a brilliant Christmas. I won't bore you with my annual treatise on how I loathe and detest the whole holiday season. It's not gay, it's not being male, it's not about not having family to share it with (my sister in law invited Rene and I to join them plus 15 others for Christmas lunch - thanks Kathy darlin') - I just passionately dislike intensely the whole commercial side of the industry called 'celebration', the compulsion to spend it with folk you'd never see other than at weddings and funerals etc. It's like Mother's Day and Father's Day etc etc. - Hallmark Heaven = Langdale Loathing!

Good, now that's out of the way....let's talk about positive things. I wasn't really looking forward to my ex boss's farewell. No real idea why, just wasn't. I went as a sort of duty thing, after all he had been a terrific guy to work for, and I did really like my 11+ years at his school (I've been gone 41/2 years now already!) so I went. Rene came too. Guess what? I had a ball. Yes, I truly enjoyed seeing all my former colleagues, swapping stories, catching up on the gossip, making a short speech where I mentioned the word 'arseholes' out loud.....yes, a very good time (even Rene enjoyed himself). We stayed at our friend Kay's new home outside Toowoomba at Highfields - wow, how her new garden has grown! (I think there's a pic or two here somewhere on the page).

I've had some lovely emails from folk around the place. I must specially mention Cary in Toowoomba who has filled me in on all the news from school and home. It was just lovely to see him and his lovely partner Anne the other night at the staff party. He's another 'late bloomer', except he went in the more conventional direction (unlike me haha).

We've had a few visitors recently, and one couple even stayed the night - that's a challenge for the first timers because we haven't quite fine-tuned this apartment yet. In the morning our visitors Polly and Kit went with us across the road to the beach side cafe for a coffee followed by a walk to the tip of the island and halfway around it. Very civilised. Mind you, coming back Polly yells at me "STOP!" (which I did immediately). Just before our complex, on the pathway outside, was a very dangerous red belly black snake. I just wasn't looking for a snake in the middle of suburbia, but there it was, sunning itself. I told the manager of the site about it, he alerted Australia Zoo (Steve Irwin's place down the road from us) and they would send someone, but 20 minutes later we went back with a camera only to discover it was recently deceased - covered in ants. Now, when we saw it earlier there were no ants on it, so it had just died I guess. Maybe hit by a car, crawled as far away as it could to die? Who knows, but it did give me a scare the first time I saw it. It's only the fifth snake I've seen in 43 years in Australia - don't go thinking we live with them and come in contact frequently, we just don't. Anyway, I won't be so casual in future. Not a fan of reptiles, not at all.

We have a guest for Christmas. Yes, Roman, a Swiss friend, is coming to stay with us for a night or two. That's lovely, especially since there was a line in the movie last night along the lines of "Happiness is only happiness if it is shared" (or something like that).

Speaking of the movie, last night Rene and I saw "Into the Wild", Sean Penn's latest film. I really admire this director's view of the world, and especially his decision to not make easy films. This film (at around 150 minutes) is a solid commitment from the film goer, but what a rewarding effort it is in the end. This morning I'm still thinking and thinking about it. Should you get the opportunity, please go and see it. To those friends of mine who assiduously avoid American cinema these days, make the effort. An astute review can be seen here http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/21/arts/flik22.php

This was the first movie we'd seen here on the Sunshine Coast. It was a very nice complex of 12 screens situated on the edge of a large shopping centre (260 shops), alongside the River Walk - a group of outdoor eateries and coffee shops either side of a river. For a large shopping centre it's quite good, but it is still huge. Anyway, we had dinner and a few beers at 'The Pig and Whistle', a British style pub (they never are, but they do try to pull it off). A short 7 minute drive home and we were in the underground car park of our apartment complex.

There is an enormous amount of growth here on the coast. Motorway construction (there's one going through the middle section of the coast north/south), estates, amalgamation of the three Sunshine Coast local government councils into one super council, lots of development and optimism. I went to visit a friend of mine who lives in a new independent living retirement community behind Caloundra at Little Mountain, and as I left around 4:45pm there would have been two dozen roos grazing behind the complex in the fields. Very lovely to witness. Rene and I have been to the local beach once (Kawana Waters) and it's divine - like all the others stretching along the eastern seaboard. We've used the pool often, and are genuinely feeling more relaxed and settled.

We now have VOIP - a regular telephone working over the internet, sort of like Skype, but we have a regular phone number and we phone people direct to their phones, not computers. We got this because we simply can't get a land line - no ports available at the local exchange. How pathetic! Thank God Howard has gone. I hope the Labor Government does a better job with telecommunications infrastructure as well as many other things. Take protection away from Qantas to ensure it has to compete with service and price and not decay to the extent it has (you've no doubt heard about Qantas' pathetic service on the ground in Brisbane Airport - cost cutting gone berserk). Anyway (ranting aside) we get VOIP for $19.95/month and have free calls to anywhere in Australia plus 10 overseas countries. These countries include USA, UK and Holland. We'll give it a try, we've only had it on for two days, but I'll report back later. The phone number will be found on the email sent out to subscribers (friends) of this blog.

Rene's hard at work next door in the gallery apartment (yes, we have two here - one we own, the other we rent). He's really enjoying being able to have a large space that he doesn't have to clean up every day. If he's mid job (you know, the frame not finished yet) he just leaves it tidily where he was working and walks away. It's a preview of how our new home will be when it is finished (the builder starts at the end of next month).

Lastly (I'm sure there's more, but for now) here are a few items of interest about The Netherlands. You already know they are a wealthy nation, but did you know they make the world's best ice cream? Tot ziens for now and have a very happy Christmas and above all a healthy and prosperous New Year.

Amsterdam - An ice-cream parlour in the Dutch city of Amersfoort, in the central Netherlands, was on Monday named the world's best ice-cream maker.Gelateria Mazzoli, owned by Ermanno Mazzoli, won the Longarone de Coppa d'Oro for its banana-flavoured ice-cream.Eighty professional ice-cream makers competed for the international award, the most prestigious in the traditional ice-cream industry.Another Dutch ice-cream parlour, La Femigi in the small southern Netherlands town of Malden, came in second. (source Expatica NL)

LUXEMBOURG – The Dutch are in the top three of richest EU nationalities. The purchasing power of the Dutch is 31 percent higher than the EU average, European statistics bureau Eurostat reported on Monday.
The richest EU citizens are the Luxembourgers, the residents of the Grand Duchy enjoy a whopping 280 percent more purchasing power than average. The Irish come in second place with 44 percent more than the average.
The poorest are Bulgarians and Romanians. They have only 37 and 39 percent of the average EU purchasing power, respectively. Even poorer are EU candidate members Macedonia and Turkey. The average purchasing power in these countries is 28 and 31 percent of the EU average, respectively. (Source Expatica NL)

The longest hop ... Qantas first flew the "Kangaroo Route" between Sydney and London on December 1, 1947, creating "one of the most important events in the history of Australian commercial aviation", according to the Daily Mirror newspaper.

Where to begin?

I had a very pleasant day today, very nice indeed. I comment on this fact to merely explain that I have not been a very happy Vegemite for the past three weeks or so. Yes, various parts have been delightful, but in the main I haven't had a very wonderful time. Why? Because we moved yet again - the 9th in the past 5 years for me.

I liked my stay in Mount Gravatt, Polly and Kit were great to live with, I think Rene and I were great house guests - but enough was enough! Folk are not meant to stay as guests for nine weeks.

The two apartments have taken a fortnight to straighten out, with Rene's office in the one bedroom apartment (which we own) getting curtains hung today and the neighbouring two bedroom apartment (which we rent) being more than adequate and spacious.

Today we swam in the lovely pool for the second time this week instead of just looking at it from our deck. It is around 25m long (I guess) and two lanes wide and being a lap pool it is consistently deep all the way. I have yet to play a game of tennis on the large full sized court, but we've seen some people using it in daylight and at night.

Peter and Bernadette are friends from Brisbane and have been staying up the coast here redecorating their beautiful apartment, so their presence has enabled us to have many lovely dinners and drinks out and about around Mooloolaba. They've gone back to Brisbane this week so we are alone here again, but we have friends visiting, starting this week, plus we have a trip to Toowoomba later this week for my former principal's retirement party.

School ended yesterday for the year and I have seven weeks vacation ahead of me. That's nice because I found the commuting to Brisbane from the Sunshine Coast (a 100km each way) a bit of a drag.

I am going from four schools down to more time at just two schools next year, so that'll be a good change.

The Saturday after we moved there was a federal election for the government of Australia. It was won, predictably, by Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party. Maxine McKew, in the former Prime Minister's seat of Bennelong, defeated John Howard, who had held it for 33 years. The Labor victory was larger than many had predicted, but it was obvious that the conservatives would be thrown out. I'm happy.

Moving has not been without its 'issues'. My beautiful big fridge does not fit into the alcove in the 2 bed apartment but does fit the 1 bed apartment kitchen (go figure!). We now own a small bar fridge (all fridge, no freezer) and we move between the two fridges when entertaining large groups. This small fridge will go into the office in the gallery in our new house, so it's a solution, but I think an unnecessary expense.

Do you own a phone (you know, the land line type)? Of course you do, except we don't. The Telstra exchange on the island isn't large enough to cope with demand so nobody (except the building managers) in our 63 apartment building can have a land line just yet. More ports in the exchange are coming, but so is Christmas. Solution? Yes, we have got wifi internet from Buderim Mountain via a local company which has an aerial on the roof and delivers it by cable to each apartment. This week we'll also take delivery of a modem which will allow VOIP to work, so we'll have a wifi internet based telephone for $19.95 a month that will allow free local and interstate calls PLUS free overseas calls to the USA, UK and The Netherlands. If you don't know how this works, it's sort of like Skype but operates using land line telephone numbers - we'll be issued a regular 8 digit plus the state area code (07) telephone number, and we'll use our regular phone set up in the two apartments totally wifi. In addition I have got the totally new, very schmick for me, Motorola Razr2 V8 mobile phone that is SO very cool - I'm still finding out how to set all the features. It has a camera for photos and even video - and above all BIG keys and a superbly brilliant screen for the person with slightly impaired vision.

The previous paragraph about the woes of getting connected in this late 2007 Australia have been downplayed considerably because I have been HUGELY pissed off at most of the crap concerning telecommunications, Telstra, Optus, shareholders and the Federal Government that have been plaguing my life for the past month. You guys reading this in Europe or America must be thinking we are SOOO backward here in Oz, and you'd be right. Between politics, screwing the consumer, placing shareholders returns above service to customers and generally fiddling while Rome burns, I have been trying and trying to get the basic services connected that the average person in a First World country would take for granted. I won't mention the fact that at our new home in Nundah I also cannot be guaranteed a landline connection of my choice come next June when we expect to move in - presently I must choose Telstra, since Optus has opted out of using Telstra exchanges for new connections until their own new exchanges are on line.

Speaking of the new house, it has been approved, the builder is ordering materials this week ready to start late next month. We have selected colours, finishes, the kitchen (stone benchtops and 2 pack cupboards) along with a myriad of last minute decisions. It is almost on budget. Rene allowed me to choose the air conditioning system and brand, so it's a ducted system with seven zones throughout the upstairs and downstairs digitally controlled - it even has a digital scroll on the coolant delivery so that it can reduce to just 10% when not working hard during the hot daytimes - but I hasten to add I wouldn't know a digital scroll if I fell over one.

We walked today to a little BBQ party at a park at one end of the island today to mark the last block of land being sold on Kawana Island. We walked on after lunch around the perimeter of the western end of the island and marvelled at how much work has been done to make it a positive balance between development and conservation. Having protected wetlands on one side along with a national park ensures it isn't totally a sea of roofs.

There's more to say, but I'm due to get to bed seeing as though we have things to do in the morning. Have a wonderful remainder of your weekend and catch you again very soon.
(PS the block we are in is the incomplete building in the very middle of the Google Earth picture of Kawana Island).