23/12/2025, 12 Viewway, Nedlands
Well the garden is thoroughly watered, the annual reticulation fix-up completed, Secret Santa presents purchased, car partially loaded up, and food bought and ready to park. Tomorrow we'll head off down to Albany for Xmas. We will be a bit of a convoy - me in our car, Mark/ Suzy in the campervan, and Talia/ Melissa in Talia's car. Fortunately Melissa will leave her car here!
Its been a blur of continual parties and outings since I last wrote. I probably now cant remember all the events but they include wind-up work drinks at Garum, Jane and Gordon's Xmas party, Mother/daughter walk Xmas lunch, and most recently Handel's Messiah concert with Tracey Horten and Elena.
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| Melissa before going out. |
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| Xmas tree I made for Jane as Xmas present |
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| Some of the daughters and all the mothers at Shorehouse for lunch |
In addition, Mark's been out playing several times in Fremantle, I've had some enjoyable evenings in watching really bad Netlix movies, and I've had a good catch up with Carol B in the UK and some texts with Lynne and John.
Work-wise, we got the Centre of Excellence grant all signed off by University council (who had to convene a special last minute meeting), I've worked every spare second on my book (which I want to finish by April), I've had a horrible meeting with a junior collaborator who appears to have used AI to "polish" (that is, make up) data, and just today I've given up on any hope of getting through the large backlog of emails (they can wait now till after Xmas). Work is over now for the year!
One interesting thing was we had a meeting with our financial planners, Momentum. Apart from yet again not having done our will (it’s been 3 years now!), the meeting has made me realise we dont need to worry about money. For some reason, I always think we will not have sufficient into the future. But they did some full modeling because Mark is going part-time from January, and now I have come to appreciate that we are financially fine. In fact, we probably need to spend more money or we will end up leaving the kids a lot of money, which generally I dont think is a good idea (want to leave them some, but they also need to find their own way).
Anyway with this new realisation, the past couple of weeks I have gone a bit wild money wise - went to Perth Art Glass and bought loads of glass, have bought expensive skin care, last night ordered two more Zoe Kratzmann dresses, and so on..... I'll slow down now because there's no point being wasteful, but I am plotting a major overhaul of my glass studio!
From here we will be in Albany for a few days, Peaceful Bay for 3 weeks, then back to Perth and a couple of days at work, and finally in late January Brisbane and New Zealand. So it might be a while before I get to those emails!
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| Glass dog made for Kayelene's Xmas present. I am her secret santa and she is dog-mad! |
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| PS Suzy drew the dog for me! |
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| Tracey, Mark, Elena, and myself at dinner after the concert |
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| Handel's Messiah - struggled to stay awake in the first half but perked up in the second half |
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| Work in progress - Tree of Life for Sue's birthday has just gone into the kiln. Starting it now as I wont have much time before her birthday in Feb because of being in Peaceful Bay and then New Zealand.. |
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