Helen Chick
It has been a busy year and in the last few days it has caught up with me: I have come down with a cold and I’m definitely showing more than my usual signs of weariness. Yesterday I felt particularly “ordinary” and then the bed and the heating/cooling in the hotel room didn’t seem conducive to sleep. Fortunately I slept quite well once the zzzzs actually hit … it just wasn’t for long enough.
After breakfast I took a taxi out to the Launceston campus, and then joined some of the northern Faculty members on a bus to Campbell Town in order to attend the annual whole-of-Faculty meeting (actually, we do have others throughout the year, but they’re normally done by video conference). The reports and presentations and discussions were interrupted by lunch out in the sun (the sun isn’t very evident in this photo, but it was certainly out and very noticeable to those of us seated at a table that did not have an umbrella!).
Here is proof that the sun was out: illuminating the remains of a “red hot poker” flower.
With four of us in the car back to Hobart I didn’t have to drive. I’d planned to have another nap (I really had run out of oomph) but ended up chatting. What I want to know, though, is how come I keep getting the older cars on the other trips I’ve done on my own instead of the new hybrid.
Fence and dried grasses at the edge of the car park.
On the way back to Hobart the driver took us on a detour to the property of a friend which happens to be one of the major old midlands farming estates. There’s a lovely Narnia lantern out the front.
The estate has beautiful manicured lawns around the main house.
When I got back to Hobart I just had time to collect some things from home, grab a bite to eat, and head off to a Relief Society Christmas party with the women at Church. We made some Christmas decorations for ourselves, and bagged up some treats and made gift tags ready for the Primary children to take to the folks at a nearby aged care home.
We’d hoped that the evening would just be simple and relaxing for people, with a chance for everyone to socialise and not feel too pressured on top of all the other Christmas chaos. I think it achieved its aim (thanks largely to the work of my wonderful counsellors and secretary who took care of a lot of the preparations because I was in Launceston).
When I got home I thought that I really needed to get around to setting up my nativity (a gift from a Scouting friend in Melbourne when I moved) … and then I pfaffed around — because it’s not as if I was tired or anything — trying to get some interesting lighting effects.
I also set up my Christmas tree (which really only involved bringing it up from downstairs) and then pfaffed around some more — because it still wasn’t as if I was tired — producing another silly time exposure of the colour changing lights (yes, I know I did a shot like this two years ago … I can’t help it if I like time exposure effects!).
And then — because, in fact, I really was really really tired — I suddenly realised how nice it was going to be to sleep in my own bed and turn off the alarm.
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