Now moving into the second half of our action packed year … hopefully you’ve had time to make a cup of tea .. or pour a glass of something stronger!

July was hectic as we culled and sorted at our over-sized Manila house, filled with far too many possessions. Pack-up week finally arrived and we farewelled our belongings, 283 cardboard-wrapped packages of varying size and shape, as they were loaded into a forty foot container. We moved to a hotel later that day and collapsed wearily to begin the count down for the last three weeks of our life in the Philippines.

As we boarded our flight home on August 1 it was eight and a half years to the day since we’d arrived in Manila – a long time to live anywhere, and particularly for a pair of nomads like the MOTH and me. If we hadn’t been so eager to get home, we may have felt a touch more nostalgic about leaving. We landed in Melbourne the next morning and drove to Geelong, where the MOTH finally got to meet our granddaughter Eve for the first time. Without delaying too much we hit the road again so he could at last see the house we’d bought! He’d been happy to rely on my judgement when I bought it, and describes the process as a “high trust model”!! Lucky for me, he loves it 🙂

We collected our new car the next day and to fill some of the waiting time till our shipment arrived from Manila, we headed off shortly afterwards on a NSW mini road trip. We visited Justin and Katherine in Bathurst and youngest son Aaron in Sydney’s west. A few nights with dear friends James and Dan, also in Sydney, then a lovely rendez vous with Nigel’s cousin Ivor and wife Kathy in Hill Top, rounded out the trip.

Once our furniture arrived, all the free time we thought we’d discovered seemed to mysteriously evaporate and a frantic few weeks ensued as we unpacked and found new spaces for most of our belongings. If you ignore the hundred or so boxes still sitting in our (thankfully large) shed, we were pretty well organised by October so we headed to Darwin for another catch up with Kate et al, then down to Perth so the MOTH could visit his dear old mum.

The weather finally warmed up and we turned our thoughts to the garden. With just over 5000 square metres of land (a little more than one and a quarter acres) there’s always plenty to do and we’ve got lots of plans for our little piece of paradise. Neglected fruit trees needed our attention, we began planting herbs and vegetables for our kitchen garden and added to the collection of native trees and shrubs, to encourage more birds into the garden. Of course, this gives us something else to do as we now have to find ways of protecting the fruit and vegetables from said birds!!

In early December I made one more quick trip to Darwin. Answering the phone one day back in August, a small voice announced, “Hello, Nanna. It’s me – Liam! I’m calling to invite you to my birthday.” How could I possibly not accept an invitation like that from our littlest and cheekiest grandson? Of course, for the sake of equity I now find myself anticipating another trip in May, for his big brother Josh’s birthday ❤

We’ve been privileged to receive a parade of house guests since our furniture arrived and it reminds us of our good fortune in having so many fantastic friends who want to come and inspect our new kennel. We loved welcoming Harriet, then Ally and Enzo, followed by Jackie, Anne, Ching and Bruce, then Anne again together with Scott. Of course, all of our kids have already been to check out the new digs too. My brother David and sis-in-law Jenny have been regular visitors, as is only fitting: they were our proxies during the buying process, when we were stuck thousands of kilometres away in Manila and needed someone “on the ground” to attend to matters both petty and crucial. It’s fairly safe to say we couldn’t have done it without them – 😘

Welcoming family and friends into our home to celebrate Christmas was a splendid end to an incredibly dynamic year. As 2016 gets underway, we still spend much time marvelling at how good life is. We wish all of you a happy, healthy and harmonious new year.