Well here we are nearly knocking on the door of December with  all the joy of

Christmas celebrations waiting for us to enjoy with family  and friends.

Again  we  have the opportunity to say,’ thank you God  for Christmas ‘ for  the real Christmas, God becoming  human and living among us. A wonder and well worthy of all the songs and stars .

You can see where my head is at present as time seems to rush by.

I was thinking the other day in retirement I have plenty of time to do things, on the other hand, the hourglass sands are on the running out side ,and yet there are so many things yet to do,experience, celebrate and share.

The pictures that come with this show something of our  travel to Maroochydoor. 

We saw Tuiana  working hard  as  Nanny and was able to enjoy some picnics with the children . Joel came over for a fortnight and I went back for a couple of weeks in Auckland.

I was well looked after  there and Allan took me down to visit our Great Uncle Jack who shared with us some of  our family history.

It was good to spend time there with Allan and Margaret and to see Joel at work.

Karen came back, to go on her last Barkly Areo Medical visit around the Stations as she had taken up another job. She was sad to say goodbye to those she has been looking after.

Because Karen changes jobs we also had to shift houses, only 2 doors, closer to Robert but quite an effort in the very hot sun, smaller house with no view, but the  house is ok. I was still in N ew Zealand so they tell me I have a debt to the shifters still.

Karen is now the CQI facilitator for the Barkly Region, based at Anyinginyi Aboriginal Corporation, she had the responsibility of Anyinginyi and 5 Department of health clinics  , so she will still have some travel out to remote areas.

The job is about best practice and quality audits, at present she is working on the accreditation   for  the Anyinginyi Health centre, so lots of meeting s . Karen has been to Darwin for training for a week and looking at going to Alice springs next week to work with another CQI Facilitator.

I have been enjoying making some wooden toys of late wooden puppets that dance when I play the Ukulele and am selling them at markets here.  I call them the hand carved original Blain St Dancers .

I  have been making Incredibly  Secret Hooey Sticks!!

We head  home on the 22^nd Dec joining Wrighty’s Marae for Christmas

Arohanui

Ian and Karen