And life goes on...

On Friday night, we managed to cram 12 friends into our house to share with them some of the photos from our recent travels. Most of them were Baha'is from our local area and as we are currently observing the fasting month in the Baha'i calendar, everyone brought with them loads of delicious food so that we could all break the fast together. We started with a few photos of the Lotus Temple in New Delhi and then some of the Baha'i Holy Places we visited in Istanbul and Edirne, before we worked our way through a very-edited chronological tour of our pilgrimage. It was great to share with our friends some of the stories and feelings that we had experienced not so long ago, not to mention the sharing of so much mouth-watering food!

Here is a last set of photos from Haifa, before we get started on posting some very belated photos and stories from India. Incidentally, our friend Astrid, with whom we shared some very memorable moments in India, is down to the last few days of her stay...she left Indore yesterday, where she has been volunteering at a Baha'i-inspired Institute that trains and educates hundreds of women from rural areas and empowers them with the skills and knowledge needed to support themselves and their families. She heads now for the Ajanta caves (containing Buddhist sculptures dating from around 200 BC to AD 650) in northern Maharashtra, then flys to New Delhi where she will also visit the Baha'i House of Worship, before departing for the UK where she will meet up with her sister and dad and have a well-earned rest as well as a nice, hot shower (something she has been deprived of for the last 3 months)!

The Shrine of the Bab, approached from one of the gardens to the east

A view of the magnificent Universal House of Justice building from the steps beneath

A beautiful skylight in the entrance hall of the International Teaching Centre

An ornamental peacock adorning the cactus gardens adjacent to the Shrine of the Bab

View of the Shrine from the terrace directly above

And another view...

Ornamental planter on the terraces

And the Terraces once more...

Since having arrived back at home almost two months ago, we haven't had a chance to travel anywhere outside the city-limits together and we are both craving a change of scenery. This change of scenery is likely to come in the form of some visitors from the east...We are keenly anticipating the arrival of Rachel, Adrian and our little nephew Max, from Melbourne around mid-April. It has been about a year since we last saw them all - far too long - so we are hoping to have plenty of time just to catch up, re-aquaint Max with his long-distance aunt & uncle and make a trip to Wongan Hills (where we have a 140 acres of land and hopefully a caravan soon as well)!

What else is happening? Well, Lorraine is busy at school with her all-boy class and a pair of identical twins that give her plenty of cause for amusement by the end of the day (especially when they show definite signs of confused identity!). Andrew has just been back to Wongan Hills for another clearing sale and has started cleaning out the caravan in anticipation of towing it up on his next trip to Wongan. There are an additional eight chicks new to the backyard, a multi-coloured lot with a bantam mother. Another five chicks arrived yesterday - crosses between a Rhode Island Red & Isa Brown. If they turn out to be particularly good egg-layers, Shanks is planning on naming them Wongan Browns and starting his own breed of chook! Beside that, life is going on as normal...we are looking forward to the end of daylight-saving next weekend and following the action from the cricket World Cup (where we can enjoy barracking for the minnows against the heavyweights of world cricket...go Ireland and Bangladesh!).

Well, until we have more news, that's it for now!