Hi everyone,
Sorry I haven't updated for a few days: Christmas and all.
By way of recap: the tribe did indeed get together on Boxing Day. I got the day off to a good start with a 12km run to (and around) Flinders Golf Course and back. The air already smelt enticingly of freshly cut hay and wood smoke. I spent a decent whack of the morning wrapping presents, which wound up looking "suitable".
Little Sister and Michael were already here, and at about midday 90 year old cousin Margaret came up as well. It was a good day to feel in touch with my roots -
The ol' kitchen stove!
And to encounter a foreign culture (Singaporean beer).
We were able to have a good (if quick) skype with the girls. I honestly feel pretty sick of myself for creating a situation where mum and dad's only grandchildren are ones they're unlikely ever to see again. Bravo Stephen. Brah-fucking-voh.
Second Oldest Sister had kindly picked up an Optus broadband docket on the way down, so after lunch we were able to bring in Oldest Sister Economist up on skype on my laptop from the Solomon Islands which was a great moment. Really everyone enjoyed that. I'm sorry there's no photos of the tribe from Boxing Day: my phone battery was nearly dead by then I'm afraid. Good heart-to-heart with Little Sister in the evening.
Yesterday was a bit of a crisis I'm afraid. I got an email from one of the partners at work asking when I'd done a certain serious injury response. According to the system I'd failed to do it by the required date, which (if the case) is an absolute disaster. To cut a long story short, I had to drop everything and go to Melbourne to address the situation. On going over the file and the electronic records, it became clear I had failed to do it - it just got lost in the week with four hearings. I don't yet know what the fallout from this will be. It's about 90% of a sacking offence. Potentially I'm about to be unemployed. I emailed Joni to warn her. Mercifully her opinion of me probably can't get much lower, and the girls are too young to understand. There was nothing else to so at the office to rectify the situation, so I decided to try and do something worthwhile with the day and went to the Blood Bank to make a plasma donation: this just requires a beating heart, so all I needed was my brain stem. Drove back here afterwards.
Today has been full of up and down emotions. I couldn't drag myself out of bed this morning to go run, so all I can say is thank God for my pal Pristiq. And for rain clouds: they're always kind of therapeautic, I think.
Big chunk of the morning spent marking and tagging calves and giving their mommas selenium injections -
- while being observed by Damian the Bull.
Which brings me to now. Not sure what's planned for the afternoon.
More later.
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