Sailing out of Fowey, Cornwall – home of Daphne Du Maurier, one of my favourite authors. She said that her life’s work was to give life to the stories of this place, which she did with amazing grace.

So several days here on board the yacht Moonshine gave me time to find my voice, to find the stories that are waiting to be told.

And they are the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things within and around organisations!

The first outing after Rob joined Elwyn and me in England – this is the first cricket club in England!

My first weekend in London with Elly, and our first plan was for me to watch her play cricket (what a surprise!). However on the way there the captain called and said the game was cancelled as it was raining and the ground to waterlogged (I thought they would be used to that:-). So we changed direction and headed for the nearest Ikea to buy some things for Elly’s new flat – crockery and an arm chair for Rob when he arrives next weekend.

It’s nice to spend the day with her because tomorrow I take the train to Plymouth to spend the week with my Aunt Judy, coming back on Friday in time for Rob’s arrival from Perth-Dubai.

Tonight many members of Christopher’s and Jeanette’s families gathered at the Victoria Park Centre for the Arts to celebrate Christopher’s first exhibition of his extremely cleverly (of course!) computer generated artwork.

Since resigning from the programming job that was very bad for him, he’s been working on this dream that he’s had for a long, long time. Jeanette has been a huge support and the rest of us have helped where we could.

So tonight we arrived with some contributions to the food and walked around the enjoy Christopher’s “real world” that lives in his beautiful mind. And it’s breath-taking. Most of us walked away having bought at least one piece, and I’m really looking forward to hanging mine next to my desk where I’ll see it the most.

And I’m looking really forward to his next creative adventure:-)

Yesterday was a special day.

Rob and I walked up the (relatively) gentle slope from Coles Bay into the Hazards on the Freycinet Peninsula, Tasmania, finishing at the lookout over Wineglass Bay which is nestled in the saddle between two gorgeous pink granite peaks. The track took us between pink granite rocks and boulders and small eucalypts. We were treated with a rare yellow-tailed black cockatoo calling from one of the trees. The sun was shining (even though this was the first day of winter), and the sky mostly blue. A heavenly day:-)

But really this doesn’t sound like much of an achievement. And for all the others making the same trek it wasn’t much, really.

But for me it was huge – the first bushwalk I’ve done for so many months I can’t remember when the last one even was! Given how much I love walking, especially in the bush, you can see how special this was. And to share it with Rob was extra special.

For the latter half of 2007 my knees gave me increasing levels of pain, reducing my normal walking exercise down until it wasn’t happening at all. So of course my fitness was pretty bad. Then investigations in November and the diagnosis in December that the cartilage behind my patellae was completely worn away and there was a lot of fluid in and around my knees so no walking, no climbing, no stairs even (and we have several sets of stairs in our house)…I went through a lot of grief over that.

So early in January, as soon as everyone was back at work including physios, I began an intensive program of rehab. Two physios a week, one remedial massage a week, two remedial rehab gym sessions, daily rehab exercises at home…it took a lot of focus but I saw this as my only chance to walk again. I wasn’t ready to give up just yet!

Now the physios have given me the green light and I am to go back only if I need to. I’m seeing the remedial massage person once a month just to make sure everything is still in order. Gym is progressing to mostly strength work and I still do some rehab exercises at home. Walking around Kings Park and Bold Park is fine now but I hadn’t yet plucked up the courage to tackle a proper bush walk.

So you can see why yesterday’s walk was so special, although I did use two trekking poles for the bigger steps to make sure I made the whole walk.

As we came back down the track, a boy and his Dad passed us on their way up. Just after they passed us the boy asked his Dad “Dad, why is that lady using 2 walking sticks?”. I called back “Because she has sore knees!”. The Dad laughed and said “There you have it son.”

But at least I was out there!

Staying with my sister Fiona in Tasmania, we crossed the D’Entrecasteaux Channel one day in our hire care in the ferry. The most exciting part of the trip was being next to a station wagon loaded high with manure!

But Bruny Island is a very special place, and we enjoyed a good wander, plus a jet boat ride down to the south-east tip of the island where there are lots of fur seals, kelp and rich sea life.

One day we will get there in our own yacht…

We made the first step towards this dream a few days later when we bought a boat mooring in Copper Alley bay, just near my sister’s place! Now we just need a boat to hang off the mooring, and since my knees went and we know that we won’t be sailing Dusky Dolphin over the Bight…

Tristan has been on a big trip. He’s been to the US to present at a geophysics conference, and then hopped across the Atlantic, as you do, to stay with Elwyn for a few days. She’d just moved into her new flat that she’s bought in Fleet (her first property that she’s actually owned), so Tristan helped with the settling in, including assembling Ikea furniture.

They visited some of Elly’s favourite places too, like Stonehenge where they were blessed with a rainbow:-) It was a good bonding time for them.

It was Tristan’s first time in US and UK, and he loved it, right down to seeing the Star Wars exhibition in Philadelphia! But he missed his little family, and even though he spoke to them on skype most days, and read to Tom and Thea if it was their bed-time, he was really glad to see them again when he returned to Perth.

Elly has left Perth after a delightful 4 months with us, the longest time we’ve spent together since she left for UK 4 years ago.

We’ve had some great family times, some great sailing times, and best of all just shared life. Like phone calls “Mum, Dad’s bike has another puncture. Can you please come and pick me up from work?”

So it’s sad that she’s gone, but she’s ready for whatever is her next stage in life:-)

Yesterday, on the eve of my birthday, when we’d planned to have started our long sail bound for Tasmania, we were moored in the anchorage at Rockingham and enjoyed a visit from Tristan, Blaine, Jeanette and the kiddliwinks. It was good to have them because it’s taking me a long time to accept that I may never be able to do the long sails that I got into sailing to do – my knees are taking a long, long time to heal.

We chatted, played swam and generally enjoyed each other’s company. And Tom discovered his “little boat”. While Tristan was in the water next to Dusky Dolphin, trying to keep his two children safe around him, he thought Tom might be safer in the dinghy so helped him to climb in. Well Tom was more than safe, he was very, very happy to be the only one in “my little boat”!

It was such a celebration, done with Tristan and Blaine’s usual flair at their lovely home!

They gathered both sides of their families together to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of Tom’s entrance into the world. He’s such a special little man, it was a privilege to share. Even my sister Helen came along. She sat with Mum, which Mum enjoyed.

When we sang “Happy Birthday” there was much joy there:-)