Life at home

The last 4 weeks have seen a number of changes start to creep into our lives...many stemming from our recent travels...

One of the first changes made was to our 'spare rooms' at the back of the house. The room on the left, the most recent occupant of which was Max, has now been transformed into Andrew's Music Studio. This is where he goes whenever he feels the need to make some noise (very frequently)...you can see his recent purchases from Istanbul in the photos below.

The rather cramped music room, with famous cymbals now incorporated into the medley!

Close-up of the largest cymbal, bashed into shape by no less that seven burly Turkish men!

This is also where any unsuspecting young 'uns end up when they come over for a visit...Max was the first one to get a drumming lesson from Uncle Shanks (aka Uncle Duck), but we have also had other friends' children experience the joy of noise-making on a grand scale since then. So much so, that I am almost tempted to place a sign at the front of the house offering toddler's percussion classes at $30 a pop as a nice little earner on the side!

Our visitors last weekend were friends Ivan & Nur, with their very gorgeous children, Nicholas (pictured) and newborn baby Nathan. Nicholas enjoyed his drumming lesson with Shanks as much as he enjoyed chasing the chooks around the backyard! Coincedentally, we discovered that Ivan & Nur were married the day after us in 2004!

With something of a penchant for technology, as soon as he saw me whip out the camera, Nicholas was up and racing towards me!

Opposite the music room, the other spare room has been transformed into something of a quiet zone, where our Turkish rug now takes pride of place. We now use this room whenever we need a peaceful place to say prayers or re-connect with the feelings of reflectiveness and tranquility that we experienced so often on pilgrimage.

The end result of a process of great deliberation and some haggling in a carpet shop in Istanbul!

What else is new? Well, as expected, there were new additions to the farmyard while we were away. Eight chicks hatched shortly after we left, with four more arriving about a week ago. If that wasn't bad enough, Andrew also decided that six ducks weren't nearly enough and bought 4 more Welsh Harlequins last week to add to the menagerie, which recently led a passer-by to politely enquire whether they were being fattened up for Easter lunch!

One of the new chicks...

...and the four new ducks. There'll be plenty to spare for anyone who doesn't mind wielding the axe!

Andrew has been busy indoors, cleaning out the study (at last!) and outdoors, today putting a towbar on his ute (ready to hit Wongan Hills early in March for a clearing sale). He made a day-trip to York last week for another clearing sale where he bought a roll-cage for the tractor. I have been busy every day at school, getting to know my new kids and sorting out my classroom after we moved classes at the end of last year.

The newly-installed towbar!

On one of the first few days after we arrived back home, we spotted our friendly native quenda again, but since then haven't seen it. We are hoping this has nothing to do with recent sightings of cats around the yard or the small falcon that was happily perched on the garden shed eyeing off the chooks last week!

Quenda, quenda, where art thou?

Finally, Andrew has also been busy tending his garden. This meal below - a delicious frittata - was made entirely from garden produce as well as freshly-laid eggs from our spoiled chooks! Our shopping habits have also changed, once we finally braved our local Coles again that is! After our time in India witnessing the daily lives of hardship lived by countless millions, we are pleased to be able to say that our resolution at the time to re-consider what we spend our money on and to cut out unnecessary items has been adhered to (however, for our purposes, as a direct product of the cacao tree, chocolate has been placed in the "fruit and vegetable" category)!

The delicious frittata made from the fruits (well, the vegetables) of Andrew's labours in his garden!

All in all, we feel much more settled, focused and happier and have been discussing the possibilities of another international adventure with friends to South America in a couple of years time (Chile, Bolivia and Peru are high on the list of attractions)! This year I suppose will be largely focused on preparing for the big move to Wongan Hills and looking forward to having some visitors from the east soon (the spare rooms will be re-transformed into pleasant accommodation just as quickly)!

Adios!

Twelve days to go...

The Intrepid Adventurers + 1

Well, seeing as there are no major developments on the travel front to announce, I thought I might just take a moment to fill you in a little bit on the main protagonists of this blog...Astrid, Christian, Shanks (Andrew) and me (Lorraine)!

Hmmmm...who can I start with...perhaps Christian...Christian Holyoak...sometimes known as Holy Smoke (he's the redhead on the left in the photo above). Christian and I met when we were both studying (well, okay, perhaps not really studying) at university in 1995. For some reason we both seemed to gravitate towards the front left hand side of the lecture theatre and at some stage we must have struck up a conversation and so the story goes. Christian, was and still is, a fairly lackadaisical, likeable chap, and our friendship has remained firm throughout the past 11 years. Christian is a psychologist (almost at the end of his Masters) and a keen traveller, having spent a lot of time in Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala to name but a few countries. This will be his first trip to India and the first time he has travelled with any of us...I wonder if he has any idea what he is in for...

A Scene from the Pilbara

On to Astrid. I met Astrid in 1997 at another friend's house. We connected immediately and have continued to be very close despite having lived far, far away from each other for most of the time since we met. Both of us have lived and worked out of the metropolis for a few years, I in Tom Price, in Western Australia's spectacular Pilbara region, and Astrid in Alice Springs, where she worked both in the town itself as well as at a remote Aboriginal community called Ltyente Apurte (pronounced Jenja Porta). Astrid is another eager adventurer and some of the countries she has visited and worked in are Kenya, Guyana, Spain, Portugal and North India with me in 2001 (by the way, she used to eat all my share of the Indian sweets that we used to take back to our hotel each night)! After Christian, Shanks and I head off to our various destinations early in January 2007, Astrid will be staying on to do some volunteer work at the Bahai-inspired Barli Vocational Institute for Rural Women in Indore for a further 3 months, before heading to Turkey, then Israel for her Baha'i pilgrimage.

Well, that leaves us with Shanks...someone else may have to write about me! Shanks and I first met in Tom Price in 2001. We got married 3 years later and now live in Perth with our menagerie (plus quenda)! Shanks is a farmer...we have a beautiful 140 acres of land in a town called Wongan Hills in Western Australia's wheatbelt (north-east of Perth). We will be moving there at the end of next year so that he can finally get started growing things...it's what he does best!

Well, until tomorrow, good night!

Our Block in Wongan Hills