Simon in Town

Simon has indeed arrived safely. Simon really appreciated the GPS that his Uncle Phil passed on to him. He was actually very lucky to get through, travelling the inland route after all the recent rains. He trusted his Lexus through 45 cm deep water, and at one stage during a 25 M stretch of water, his car dipped briefly into even deeper water. He was lucky the car’s momentum carried him through! He told us that his Lexus’ electronic gadgets malfunctioned for quite a time following the “dunking”. Simon will be the only posh car driver crazy enough to go that route until the waters recede.

Simon had intended reaching our place 8 am of a morning but he stopped “somewhere along the route” and slept in the car for about 6 hours. This helped him as it turned out because it was in the daylight hours that he was later able to get advice for an alternative route past a submerged bridge.

One of Simon's first tasks was to wash his car of 3,000 Km of dust. After the wash he resolved to do it again a little better the next day.

Jess's Exhibition

Dan's girlfriend Jess exhibited her graduation folio this week along with other students in their final year of graphic design at Victoria University city campus. It was a great relief and pleasure for Jess to reach this point. We drove into the city and met them at the exhibition. Each student designed an A1 sized panel (colour laser printed) which displayed their best work for the course. As well as this the course produced an attractive book displaying this work (and more) for prospective employees to remember them by, and Peter thought that made the exhibition ten times more effective. The simplicity and uniformity of the presentation made it a good student exhibition.

Peter remembers his own student exhibition which was a total non event for what it generated. There was no corporate visual structure. No real promotion. It was just a change of class room decor in the last week of the year and that was that. Who came to view the exhibition was anyone's guess because Peter doesn't remember if it had an opening. On the other hand, Jess's course staff have shown a supportive attitude as they attended to the needs of their graduating students for what is very much a cut-throat industry to get into. When every university in every state is offering a graphic design course, competition for a position in a good firm makes it tough. Peter was fortunate. He was at the right place at the right time to land the job with Michael Bryce.

Celebration at Shuga

Peter's men's Bible study group had its Christmas meal at Shuga Cafe-restaurant where Dan works. That was pretty neat. They booked for ten and twelve came and that was fine. A few of the group knew Dan and went to the griller to greet him. Everybody enjoyed the meal they ordered. Peter's Ratatouli (spelling!) risotto was super nice. Afterward the table became a meeting place to plan for a January event at the church. Everybody agreed that Tony was a natural leader and appreciated this gift that he has.

Lunch at Azurea

After church, we lunched with Joy, Craig and Abigail at our 'alternative' place, Azurea Cafe Restaurant. This event has become a sort of institution with us now. We even order much the same food each week. The table top game is often the same between Peter and Abigail. This time the focus was on Sudoku numbers mixed with drawing colourful shapes. It is always a nice time and we feel blessed by God to be able to fellowship in this way, in such a relaxed and fun way.

Cafe Kids

At Greensborough Plaza we dropped in at the Centreview Cafe for refreshments. The grandkids asked for hot chocolate and we had our usual coffees. Piper and Jasper had found a neat little toy to take home - a not too expensive item. Jethro also got a barrel of monkeys, the same as Jasper, and Piper a dinosaur egg that you have to soak in water.

Then with roughly perfect timing, Bec and Gord joined us when we had actually stopped for another snack at the other end of the Plaza, the playground end. We photographed the whole family in this playground at about the time we said our good-byes and went our different ways. It had surely been a really nice time all round. Bec and Gord had loved the U2 experience and we had a dream run with Piper, Jaz and Jet.

Christmas Encounters

We were delighted to have the three grandkids overnight. Bec and Gord dropped them off so that they could go to the U2 concert. The little ones were no trouble and in the morning we busied them with setting up our old Christmas tree that we get out each year. That was fun. Then, as planned, we took them to Greensborough Plaza for a treat of a time. It was there that we stopped for a while at the third scale Nativity Scene. We were glad that the Greensborough Plaza management thought it good to do this. The three little ones made links with our small Nativity Set and this much larger one. This was yet another piece in the big story that happened more than two thousand years ago.

Sons of Korah Gig

Peter went to watch Sons of Korah playing in Mill Park Baptist Church. How good was that. This was one of his favourite bands. Sons of Korah are based in Geelong and were touring about Australia partly to promote World Vision, especially to promote the sponsoring of a child. Only 6% of Australians are involved in this way and World Vision enlisted the aid of Sons of Korah to create awareness.

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The evening was opened by another artist Ann-Maree Keefe who has a new album out called time of the day. She had a beautiful voice. It was a tremendous evening and hopefully they will come to Mill Park again.