Last Lights

As the evening closes in in Winter, the sky illuminates in saphire lights for a few minutes and the day breathes out. It's always my favourite time of day.

Tom is Fourteen

14 Things You Didn't know about Tom

1. When he was six weeks old he was dipped into the waters of Avalon Beach

2. Tom is a fantastic swimmer

3. He enjoys sailing

4. He has become a good enough fisherman to feed a family

5. He is quite a good cook

6. English is not his favourite subject

7. Food Technology is his favourite subject

8. Alex has more accidents in Tom's company than at any other time

9. Tom has great balance

10. Much better than his brothers

11. Tom likes to eat porridge for breakfast

12. Tom is on Facebook

13. Tom likes to go for bushwalks for sometimes two hours in the Crag

14. Tom is happiest when he is skateboarding

Castlecrag Early Days

Castlecrag Amphitheatre lit for a performance
Road in Castlecrag

Panorama shot looking south

Surveyors working

The past leads to the present.

Retreat Reserve May 2011

View down creek to Sailors Bay shoreline

Back at school again

We are all back at school, bar migraines and the occasional injury at a skate park requiring a six hour visit to the emergency paedeatrics department at our local hospital. Thanks Alex, it was a useful and interesting Mother's Day activity. And as it turned out I could have done the first aid myself, but we would never have had the x-rays or the tetanus shot.
My school work is going well. I just wish that there was a High School attendance fairy that would sprinkle some school dust over my senior students so they made it to school on time everyday. I have started dropping into their second lesson home room to say hello and eyeball them, just so they know that their teacher for period one classes does exist. It is moving on to June, in Sydney and the days are turning windy and cold with the sun setting at ten past five. Even when the days start to get longer again from the end of June Sydney will still be cold all the way up to September. It takes a long time for the sun to return to the Bulwark. Everyone cheers when it does and daylight savings starts again, but that's not till October.
Getting to school sees me either commute by walk - bus - walk - train - walk, which takes just as long as driving to school. Or driving and leaving a little later and taking twenty right hand turns through inner city streets. The walking commute is the way to go health wise, and I have taken to wearing Tom's wind jacket everyday. This keeps the wind chill factor out of the layers of woollies underneath. The kids have warm tops for school and have already started leaving them in their classrooms instead of popping them into the school bag to bring home again. The cold is a great teacher though.