Time has flown, and is indeed flying towards the next BIG thing... this Sunday Mrs Holt Press and I fly to Hawaii to spend two weeks with our dear friends Paul and Vicki. We are ticking jobs off our to do list in preparation: passports, visas, travel money, insurance, hotel booking, flight details, connections and transfers in Sydney and Honolulu, US plugs, packing etc. Then of course there's managing Surf Boy (formerly known as Sport Boy) in our absence. Hello Nan! He's not too hard to manage apart from being coeliac (allergic to gluten) and having a propensity to lose mobile phones. He will be kept busy in our absence, initially at Soul Survivor and in the second week "on duty" at the Bells Beach Pro surfing competition. Now that he attends SEDA surf school in Torquay he and his grommie mates will be "working" at the Pro. (Trying to get close to Kellie Slater, Mick Fanning et al more likely!) Of course, he's just a little jealous that we are going to Hawaii, the birth-place of surfing :)
Paul and I met in Cairns in 1980, both of us travelling around Oz. We've grown closer and closer as the years have passed despite living on opposite sides of the world. I last saw him in New Zealand in 2009 on a fly fishing trip. We are all very excited about catching up in Hawaii where Paul and Vicki have a house.
Following my mission to Queensland to help Pop get ready to move I spent 5 days in WA.
It's been a whirlwind for Dad the last few months. He had his final operation following bowel cancer, sold his house in Gympie, bought a house in Geelong and moved back to Victoia after an absence of 20 odd years. And in the midst of all that his sister, my Auntie merle, passed away. He is settling in well to his new home and getting lots of stuff done to make it comfortable. It is great to have hime living so close for the first time in 40 years! Unpacking
The main purpose for the trip was to spend some time with my mate Letchy hiking on the Bibbulmun Track. We used to do this regularly but it is nine years since our last hike and we both felt the difference big time! Poor Greg ended up with terrible blisters and struggled to make it to the end on the second day. Despite the pain we had a great time together, talking and sharing and remembering. We walked from Sulliavan's Rock to North Bannister, about 40km, a journey that Greg did last year with his son Ryan and Huss, the afghan boy who had lived with them for the last three years. Tragically Huss took his own life a few months ago. Our hike was done in his memory and hopefully helped Greg with his grief and sadness. Bibbulmun pics on Facebook
Typically I managed to squeeze plenty more in to my 5 days: the CFFL pre-season draft with all the footy boys, watching the Dockers with a couple of Freo supporting bogans on Friday night, golf and catch up with my old (young) mate Ryan, a couple of days hanging out with Jordy, Sculpture by the Sea at Cottesloe, a night at Sally and Warren's, trawling a couple of swap meets, seeing Big Brother briefly and Sunday night with 3/4 of the Breakfast Club for dinner in Mt Lawley. Friends and family on FB
It is always great to see my mates and friends and spend time with my son but I also spent significant time talking about a major decision I've been contemplating for a long time. After many years of avoiding/delaying/procrastinating/wasting time I've decided to bite the bullet and do what I should have done years ago. I'm going to go to university and get my teacher's degree and then hopefully have a late blooming career as a teacher. It will take 4 years to get a degree which will hopefully allow me about 10 years of teaching. I'm leaning towards primary teaching.Unfortunately I left it too late to get started this year at Deakin Uni in Geelong and there's no mid-year intake so I won't be able to commence till 2015. That gives me the rest of this year to get ready and work out how to manage on a student income. I'll work part-time in some capacity while I study.It has taken me a long time to get to this point in my life but now that I've made the decision I'm excited and eager for it to begin.
Meanwhile, Hawaii awaits...
