Christmas 2013

This is now our fourth Christmas down under and we have started to develop our own traditions, as well as continuing with some old ones. 

The advent candles arrived from Anglesey in time for the 1^st December and the calendar with a full set of Christmas pegs this year is put up. This is the advent calendar we purchased during our first Christmas down under and decided that as it may be too hot to have chocolate in the calendar pockets, we’d have Christmas pegs instead. Our calendars were also joined by a table mat this year, made by my mum to bring some of the Morgan Family Christmas tradition to Adelaide. When my mum was pregnant with my brother she made Christmas mats for the table and she continues the tradition for us. Big thanks mum, we love it. 

It begins with finding a Christmas tree, at a local Christmas tree farm called Santa’s trees. Where you pull up to a shed, they provide you with a saw and say. Go and cut your tree down. I think this may be Mark’s favourite part of Christmas. It allows him to go four wheel driving and demonstrate his man power. This is followed by the purchase of delicious cherries. 

 

Once home the rest of the afternoon is spent putting the tree up and decorating, whilst of course listening to Christmas music and eating cherries. 

 Bump at 34 weeks.

 

The weekend before Christmas I finally got around to decorating the Christmas cake that Mark made back in October. I have to say I don’t think my cake decorating will win prizes, but it’s only the 3^rd Christmas cake I have decorated. As this was my sister Anna’s job in the Morgan household, but I have a feeling my skills may improve over the years. I think I may have to ask our friend Caroline for some advice, as I watch her cake decoration skills develop on Facebook with jealousy. 

 

As both of us were working this Christmas Eve, Christmas did not begin for us until 2pm on 24^th December. Though it was very much welcomed when it arrived, by us both I think. Mark was looking forward to week off and time to sleep, as he has been working crazy hours trying to get grant proposals written and experiments done. Me on the over hand, the 24^th December marked the end of work for me for a year. So I think I was full of mixed emotions, excitement for the arrival of our baby and sadness that I will be leaving work behind for 12 months. The last 15 months at Guide Dogs SA has been fantastic. I have learnt so much and met some amazing people. I look forward to continue my career with them in 2015, all the best team for 2014. 

After a festive bus journey home (grandparents with their grandchildren singing on the bus), I arrived home to be greeted by Mark and flowers from Mum and Dad.

The rest of the afternoon was spent beating Mark at scrabble (Scrabble tournament are turning out to by our holiday tradition) and watching a Christmas movie. Later in the evening I took Mark to the Christmas carol service held at St Peters Cathedral to try and get him in the mood. It was a lovely service filled with tradition and new. There were some Australian carols that we had never heard before, called ‘The Three Drovers’. Words by John Wheeler and Music by William G James (1895-1977).

As Christmas carol services on Christmas Eve is a Morgan tradition we rounded the evening off with a traditional Farrell Christmas pint, before heading home to prepare the Beef wellington for Christmas dinner. 

 

Christmas day began with a skype session with the Farrell household, presents under the tree and a breakfast of croissants. Once the weather had cooled off a little we headed to Myponga Beach for our afternoon and tradition of Christmas cake on the beach. I do like a good swim on Christmas day. 

 

Once home our Beef Wellington dinner was served (amazing), before a skype session with both the Morgan households, telephone calls to the Farrell relatives and Face Time with Danny and Alan. It was great to catch up with everyone and hearing all the news. Bring on 2014, I now can’t wait to see you all in person. 

 

Our Christmas ended like last years, with a game of scrabble, which saw the tournament score go to 1/1. 

Merry Christmas everyone xxxxx

Summer begins down under 2013

Live down under continues to be busy for us. October ended with a Halloween party at Jeff and Gayle’s house. This is an annual fancy dress party and is great fun. Mark’s costume was the talk of the party. He appeared to be the children’s favourite.

Can you guess what he is?

Jeff and Mark

November this year saw Mark try and grow a moustache for Movember.

After a relaxing holiday with Jane we have spent most weekends getting the house ready for our new arrival. I have reorganised all the house cupboards, so we can make space in the spare room. Mark’s office has been moved to the dining room and Mark has been learning the first thing to fatherhood, how to put the cot up. Just a few more things to do and the room and Mark and I, I think will be ready.

Cot cover made by my godmother when a was a child. 

 

As well as preparing the house we have been attending weekly antenatal classes at the hospital where the baby will be born. We have learnt how to swaddle babies, change nappies, how to put to bed to avoid cot death. We have also learnt about what is happening to my body and what will happen during labour. I am happy to say that I am feeling a little better about it all, following these classes. Last week we visited the labour ward and Mark checked that he would be able to park the car in the car park (high raised parking, meant he was worried that the car would be too tall with the roof rack to get in.). I am glad to say that all is fine. Our last class next week is about breastfeeding. I have to give Shelly our midwife during these classes a shout, because she has been fantastic and so understanding.

In November my friend Liz held a baby shower for me. I have to say as my first experience of a baby shower. It was great fun and she did an amazing job. So again a big thanks has to go to Liz. I had a lovely afternoon. She had set the room up like an English garden party and she even had cucumber sandwiches Dad. After I told her about what you ate the night before Anna and I were born. We played a number of games. One of my favourite game was, guest the baby. This is when everyone brings a picture of themselves to the party and people have to guess whom the baby is. I have to give mum and Sue a thanks for the baby photos. I think I may have to work out a way of getting some photos of Mark and I when we were kids. I thought I might do a collection of photos to hang up somewhere. Family history in a picture, I think I will call it. This may have to be a 2014 project.

Chris and Azizh

Georgia

Liz

Claire, Chris, Annette, Chris

Azizh, Lynne, Yasmine

Me at 31 weeks

Work has been keeping us both busy. I have been settling into the Neurological Vision Team and learning about how neurological vision loss effects people. I have really enjoyed the last few months in this team; they are a great group of people. This work sadly has to be put on hold from 24^th December, as from 25^th December I will be on a year’s maternity leave. To round my time off with this team we held our Christmas party last weekend. We hired a bus and spent the day in the Barossa Valley wine region. As wine is off the agenda for a pregnant lady I spent the day playing croquet, eating pizza and enjoying some lovely views. During my Barossa wine tour Mark enjoyed the day at the cricket with Jason.

Gareth and Peter

Abby, Mel and Holly

Laura and Janelle

Left to right top row - Gareth, Holly, Adrian, Azizh and Janelle

Left to right middle row - Abby, Mel, Laura, Peter

Left to right bottom row - Claire, Tracey, Kris, Sandy

Since I last wrote the blog I continue to work on the Professional Development Committee for the Australia Occupational Therapy Board of South Australia. In mid October I helped organise and run a state breakfast for OT week and I have helped arrange the Professional Development calendar for 2014.

The list of papers that Mark has written continues to grow and he has had a number of field trips to enjoy. Including a week in New South Wales to learn a computer stats program. He has also been very busy with grant writing and interviewing for a post doc position, which he won the funding for earlier this year.

Last weekend after my day in the Barossa I met Mark at Jason and Georgia’s house for a BBQ with the children. I haven’t seen my godson Ben since late October. He has now started walking but still has some time for a hug. Juliet (3 Years old) has become more and more interested in my bump and spent some time on Sunday evening trying to undress me so she could see the baby and Rhys continues to develop his skills as a big brother.

Ben

 

Ben and Juliet

This weekend the baby prep continues and we have to collect our Christmas tree and attended my end of year staff party on Saturday afternoon. Thanks to mum I am beginning to feel it is a bit more like Christmas. I may even have to decorate the Christmas cake this weekend.

October 2013

Since my last blog I have completed the Guide Dogs Student camp. Which thanks’ to the amazing group of work colleagues and some fantastic students. It was a great success I feel.  The week long camp was themed around ‘The Amazing Race’ and ‘Mastercheif’. The students were in teams of 3 or 4 and they had different countries. Points were awarded for the cooking of the evening meal, the making of the morning muffins and participation and improvements in sessions. At the end of the day the winning team were able to go and buy ice cream from the local shop. Which for those of us with sight maybe a simple task, but can be extremely challenging for people who are vision impaired. The students were amazing and took everything in their stride. Participating in yoga, blind cricket, money awareness tasks, packing a suitcase, going to the local shopping centre, visiting the airport, using chopsticks and purchasing their finally lunch from the Adelaide Central Markets and riding tandem bikes with Guide Dog Staff. 

After a long and tiring week at camp, I was homeward bound to pack for our latest holiday to Melbourne and along the Great Ocean Road. We spent our first day of holiday traveling to Melbourne to meet up with Jane (Mark’s friend from University). In total the drive took us 10 hours in total. On arrival at Melbourne we navigated our when through Melbourne (not the easiest of tasks) to our hotel, checked in and then headed straight out to find Jane. 

Meeting Jane was like we’d only just left her in London (where we last met in July 2012). After hugs on the street corner and listening to Jane’s story of her tram nightmare, we went in search of dinner and our holiday along the Great Ocean Road begun. 

We sent Sunday and Monday in Melbourne walking around its sights. On Sunday we worked through the parks, visited Captain Cook’s house (which they had brought from the UK. Shipped it to Australia and re-built it, in a park in Melbourne).  For our evening meal we found a very tasty Moroccan restaurant.

 

 On Monday after a bit of maternity shopping for me, we met Jane in the Melbourne National Museum where we spent a number of pleasure hours (fully recommended if you every visit). In the evening whilst Jane went to a yoga class Mark and I completed a pub crawl of Fitzroy (Melbourne Suburb), which in the end involved one pub, as all the others had been closed down. This was not a problem as we appeared to have stumbled upon Fitzroy’s icon pub ‘The Napier Hotel’. It was a true old style Australian pub that serviced pints, Mark was happy. Here we stayed drinking in the atmosphere and where Jane joined us for dinner. Amazing pub food, another place we would fully recommend if you find yourself that side of Melbourne. 

 

Tuesday started with a walk in the Botanic Gardens, before the drive along the Great Ocean Road began. We started at Port Lonsdale to show Jane the mouth of the Bass Strait. Following this we continued on to Barwin Heads and Anglsea for a walk on the beach, before visiting Aireys Inlet, to visit the Round the Twist Lighthouse (A children’s program for those of you who don’t know, as Mark had no idea).  We ended our day in Lorne, with a walk along the beach and dinner at Cuba Bar Lorne, where we were treated to fantastic food and outstanding service. 

 

 Port Lonsdale

 Barwin Heads

Anglsea

Round the Twist Lighthouse

Lorne

On Wednesday after a hearty breakfast our trip continued to Apollo Bay, taking in the Otway Ranges on route. This was cut short after a lunch break. When we noticed that our fuel gage was registering half. Which we knew was impossible as we had only filled up in Lorne and driven 50km, so it was a fast drive to Apollo Bay to find a garage before they closed. Through a matter of elimination, of not smelling diesel and only being able to put 11 litres into the tank, it was established that it was the fuel gage that had the issue. Now that we could rest easy in the knowledge of the problem, we enjoyed a dinner of tapas. 

The day of waterfalls 

 

 

Thursday was our longest drive along the Great Ocean Road. We visited Cape Otway, the Otway Fly (tree top walk), Gibson Steps, the 12 apostles and Loch Ard Gorge before arriving in Warrnambool after dark. This evening we visited an old favourite of ours Warrnambool Hotel for dinner before heading to bed. 

Cape Otway

 

Tree top walk 

Friday as we had to pass many of the natural wonders of the Great Ocean Road in the dark on Thursday we head back to take them in, before continuing on to Portland. So Friday’s tourist route took in the ‘Bay of Islands, ‘Bay of Martyrs’, ‘The Arch’, ‘London Bridge’, a trip to the ‘Railway Shed Timboon Distillery(where we enjoyed another fantastic meal and Mark tasted the whisky). Before continue on our journey to Port Fairy and onto Portland. 

London Bridge

 

The Arch

On Saturday we drove Jane back to Adelaide for the night, as she had to fly back to Melbourne on Sunday to begin the search for jobs. On our route home we visited Cape Nelson, Cape Bridgewater, Piccaninnie Ponds and the Blue Lake in Mount Gambier. We rounded our holiday off with dinner at Wasai Japanese Kitchen at Adelaide Central Markets and a flick through the wedding album. As Mark and I realised that Jane would be the first friend from our wedding to go through the album with us. 

 Cape Bridgewater

 

Piccaninnie Ponds

 

Blue Lake

 

All in all a great week and we hope we can welcome Jane back to Adelaide sometime in the next 12 months.

Thank you Jane.

On my return to work on Monday morning, my happy relaxed feeling didn’t last long. As within minutes of my arrival our team was given the very sad news that one of our close knit team had been involved in an accident over the weekend and was now fighting for his life in hospital.

Unfortunately Bill Harriff my work colleague and friend (his partner Kris and I have worked together for the last two years, at RSB and now Guide Dogs.) had been knocked off his bike at speed on his return trip to Adelaide, as part of a charity bike ride to the Flinders Rangers and back. Bill sustained spinal and brain injuries.  Regrettably Bill lost his life to these injuries on Monday afternoon. 

Bill was the fittest 69 year old man I have ever met.  He had a thrust for life and a passion for helping people and riding bikes. He will be greatly missed by me and Mark. Our thoughts and support is with Kris and her family at this very difficult time.  

After a very hard week Mark and I have been trying to take our minds off the events of the week, by researching and preparing for our new arrival. On Saturday we spent the day looking for a new desk for Mark and cot for the baby. During our trip to Ikea however Mark had other more important things to do, when he found the leaping frogs. This was rounded off with a relaxing evening with the Koerber family and a hug from my godson Ben. 

Today we have had breakfast in Glenelg and a drive around the Adelaide hills, before an afternoon of photo editing and blog writing. 

We hope this blog finds everyone at home well. All our love Claire and Mark xxxx