Year of the Goat

Returning to Singapore and work on Wednesday coincided with Peter's birthday. A number of us joined him for a late supper after work at Grapevine and then a few wandered home with us for a nightcap. Some people don't know when to go home and in fact one even stayed over! It was a fun night.








Everything here is gearing up for Chinese New Year on Feb 19, the Year of the Goat (or Sheep or Ram, depending on your interpretation of the Chinese character 'Yang' which really means any ruminant mountain animal with horns).  In any case people born under the sign of the Goat are described as peace-loving, kind and popular. 

The malls are all dressed up and the shelves are overflowing with treats and red or golden decorations. Tiger Brewery always do a special promotion at this time of the year. We have been trying to win $8000 by collecting 4 different bottle tops that together make up Gong Xi Fa Cai. 

 On Thursday after work while we had dinner at our usual Kovan grill and the Tiger Girl surprised us with a Tiger bottle top that gave us $80.That paid for our dinner, drinks and put some in her pocket. I'm not sure who was the most surprised. 

On Friday Eric went for a bike ride to Bishan and Ang Mo Kio Parks. The bikes had been collecting dust since we went into serious step climbing training last year. 




















Last weekend, the Living and Learning Centre in Yarra Glen celebrated 50 years of operating in the community. My Mum was the VIP as she was one of the few who initiated the project.They had a pear tree there for her to plant in recognition of her efforts. She roped Dad in as well and he was the Treasurer for many years. Judy attended the celebrations. 

While those celebrations were winding up, on Saturday night we met Heather and Peter after work and traveled in to Chinatown to see the lights and decorations. It was packed with people but the displays were worth the trouble. We probably should have eaten somewhere else though as getting food in Smith St was for people prepared to stand in queues only. 

Sunday went so quickly and before we knew it we were heading back to the airport for another flight, this one to Darwin. I'm pretty sure the Duty Free Shop recognised Eric from the week before as this time the Lion lured him back. 

We were met at the airport by Sandy even though it was before 6am. We settled in at her new place in Lyons and then Eric drove her to school so we could use her car. After a sleep we dropped in to Luke's new store in the city only to discover he was on a rostered day off so we went back out to Koolpinyah Cres where we found both he and Tahlia home with the dogs. Ali is looking greyer again but still lively and their Xena could lick you to death. We arranged to have dinner with them later in the week as Mervyn, Tahlia's dad, is also in town then. We met up with Sandy, Di and Randall and their son Tristan at the Precinct down at the waterfront for dinner. It was a lovely evening sharing travel plans and stories. Di and Randall visited us with Sandy last year and are off to Wales about the same time we go to Ireland in June. In fact they invited us to join them for a few days on a riverboat in Wales if we have the time and we are considering it. 

Look who came out to meet us! These cheeky Magpie Geese were very comfortable in the damp green verge. 














On Tuesday we did find Luke at work and managed to book the flights for June. No trouble to him. The other chaps in the pic are his trainees. He is managing to attract a good staff from his old workplace (not sure how they feel about that). The shop is right on the corner of Mitchell and Knuckey streets and so an excellent location. He is very happy with the business coming through the doors and will have no problem meeting his target for the month. 

We had to buy a new phone as the one we took with us just locked up so we went out to JB-Hi at Berrimah where Luke's mate Noah looked after us and then took a detour out to Lee Point and Buffalo Creek to see the development on the way in the new suburb of Muirhead and also out at the new Club Tropical Resort. Its all very extensive.

Club Tropical Resort used to be a mozzie infested caravan park. 

In the evening we collected Sandy and she shared some EC resources with me for some writing I am doing with MAE. Eric cooked up a lamb bbq which we all enjoyed indoors. It is very hot here at the moment, as we expected, and in fact Severe Tropical Cyclone Lam is causing evacuations and threatening damage along the coast out in Arnhemland as I write this. Here we are relaxing in the knowledge the cyclone is well to the east.

We dropped Sandy at work on Wednesday and then went for a short walk through the Coastal Nature Reserve by the hospital, a favourite bird watching site of ours. It is so green at this time of the year and the spear grass above my shoulders. We saw plenty of birds but either they are getting faster or we are getting slower, all the small ones seemed to flit off before we got to identify them. Still we saw kingfishers, lorikeets, kites, finches, friarbirds, doves, honeyeaters ..... you can't be disappointed with that. Since I was already hot and sweaty I then spent about an hour in Sandy's garden which needed some attention. I was happy to see the gardener we employ at Koolpinyah is doing a good job and have been able to resist getting my hands dirty there, but just couldn't look at the state of this site any longer. In that short time I was able to fill her wheelie bin with invasive weeds and prunings. 

We took a drive out to Palmerston to visit Gray Primary where Eric spent 5 years as AP. There were still a number of staff there that he worked with. It was a tough school and the staff had to pull together and so built lots of long-term friendships. On the way home we called into Greening Australia to buy a few more plants for Koolpinyah, it is nice not having to dig the holes, just place them for Manuel. (Update: when we returned Thursday evening I found 2 chewed plastic pots and a very guilty looking Xena so had to do the digging after all). 

In the evening we collected Sandy and then all went down to the Dripstone cliffs to watch the sunset and enjoy the cool breeze off the choppy Arafura Sea. In fact the cyclone caused waves to be big enough for the foolhardy to surf and extreme tides while we were in Darwin. 

Sandy went home to get some work done while we shared a lovely Indian meal with Colin and Denise. They have recently become grandparents for the first time ("winning" a competition with us) and also visited Ireland last year so we had plenty to talk about. The evening went so quickly! We shared the winnings, a lovely Claire Valley red, with them. 








Much of Thursday was spent doing errands; we paid the bills, got the groceries, repacked and cooked dinner to share with Luke and Tahlia.  When we collected sandy after work she took us for a tour of the Alawa School farm. They have chooks, turkey, peafowl, goats, pet rabbits, a turtle and lizard to mane a few. Usually there are poddy calves and next they are looking for pigs. The chooks free range around the fruit trees and the veggie garden is a great source of fresh supplies for the kitchen, canteen or for sale. The farm program provides hands-on, real life experiences for the students and is integrated into many areas of the curriculum and tied to the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. Note the geese on the roof in the second picture 

It was a lovely evening shared with Mervyn on the back verandah with the dogs. How did we manage not to take any pics of luke and Tahlia at home? 

We should have had no trouble flying out at midnight since it was expected STC Lam would hit landfall well east of Darwin. In fact it it scored a direct hit on Ramingining and Milingimbi as a Cat 4 storm about 2am, I can't imagine how frightening it would be to be present in a remote community shelter there in the dark. 

What we hadn't realised was I booked the first leg of the return tickets via Denpasar for 19th March instead of Feb! Thankfully Jetstar were able to get us on and our only penalty was having to check in the bags instead of taking them as carry on. Its only money she says as she grinds her teeth, what a waste of holiday dollars! There is no doubt Denpasar airport has improved since we last spent a night there between flights. That was back in about 2005 and nothing was open and you had the choice of lying on the dirty tiled floor or the teak chairs, a very long and uncomfortable transit stop. The new facilities are fabulous with all-night food outlets and cushions but you pay for it. We had to purchase visas on arrival which we had not expected since we were staying in the airport and then we had to pay departure tax. Both these have increased exponentially no doubt paying for the new airport.