Currently - for Wendy

Currently reading

'A Rose for the ANZACs'.

As an aside,  ANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand Army corps. The soldiers in these forces are called ANZACs. ANZAC day on 25th April is one of Australia's most important national occasions. It is a National holiday and there are a lot of parade's and ceremonies commemorating those lost at war.  I have to say, in my opinion, they respect their war dead a lot better over here than in the UK.

Reading  is easy here, lots of libraries and lots of books. The only challenge is browsing with Ruben who spends most of the time racing up and down the library with a trolley. I usually just grab 6 of the fattest books I can find and hope that at least a few of them are worth reading.

Currently watching

6th season of the West Wing. After watching a bit of TV when we first arrived, I decided I can't really be bothered with it.  I would rather watch a series of my choice when I want to.

Currently listening to:

I can get UCB radio here at home and in the car and I love it. So many interesting programmes on different things. I especially like the news updates from a Christian perspective and things about Australia's rich Christian heritage.  Australia is surprisingly more openly Christian than the UK. There are lots of Christian schools and chaplains in many schools, whether they are Christian or not.

Currently praying about:

I know we have just moved here and are always moving, but this is what I am challenged to pray about. God gave us time, talent and treasure, how are we using them?? 'Only one life, 'twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last.'  (UCB May 9th 2014) What should I/we be doing here or somewhere else. How should we be using our time, our talents and our treasure???

Currently enjoying:

The weather is now beautiful, sunny with blue skies almost every day and slightly cooler at night.

The landscape. It's nice to live somewhere so beautiful set amongst tropical hills.

Currently not enjoying:

If I'm honest, I am a little bit bored living in suburbia in the first world. Where are all the riots??? Not much happens here. It's a little bit far away from the action here.!!

This week

They say a picture says a thousand words. I hope that's true as I don't have time for a thousand words!! School started again this week but we only had Wednesday and Thursday as Friday was ANZAC day, so there was still time for lots of fun and wildlife spotting. We seem to spend lots of our time looking at kangaroos and going to the rainforest. Today we went on a trip in an old  second world war army duck through the rainforest. We also saw a  Cassowary by the side of the road and a Kookaburra in the garden.

Rainforest

As it is the holidays and Daniel has a few days off, we are trying to get out and about. Today we went to Kuranda village to walk in the rainforest. On the way back I took a few photos of Cairns. The white buildings in the middle of the picture at the top are the airport.

Proof we are in Australia!!!

Animals

In an attempt to find things to do in the holidays we went to the central shopping mall where they had a small farm. Caleb and Ruben loved the animals. Unfortunately we discovered that Caleb is allergic to guinea pigs as a few minutes later he broke out in hives!!

Preparing for Ita

As you may or may not know, Tropical Cyclone Ita is around, and heading for us (actually, not heading for us yet, but forecast tracks tend to drift South).


I was working in Mareeba today, and they were making their preparations - bringing the most expensive aircraft into the hangar (like sardines); staking and roping the others to the grass; removing all loose materials from around the hangar, and trying to squeeze the trailer in with the planes. No one up there will be working tomorrow.

In Cairns we will probably work in the morning, while keeping a good eye on the forecast - and then come home to do our own preparations, prior to the forecast arrival time.

We would value your prayers that the cyclone would not come too close, or be too damaging.

The sardines in the tin:

Our House and the gardener!

For those of you who are interested in these things here are a few photos of our house and the new gardener!

I guess our house is pretty Australian, or pretty normal for these parts. The differences from a 'normal' English house are:

It is all on one level. Almost all houses here are. Although the Queenslander houses have their level raised up.

There is no carpet, everywhere is tiled.

The lounge, kitchen and dining room is all one open area.

All the rooms are fitted with fans and air conditioning.

All the windows are screened to stop the bugs getting in.

There is a covered outdoor area to sit. Almost all houses have these here as it is too hot to sit in the sun.

The house is cyclone proof or supposed to be. I guess it survived a category 5 cyclone in 2011, so it must be OK.

There is a big garage. All the houses I have been in have garages. I know many do in the UK too, but I think here they are more widespread because of the heat and the need to keep your cars cool.