Christmas Letter 2011

Hello Everyone

It is good to get a chance to share our news with friends and family. Life gets so frantically busy if we didn’t all make this commitment to a Christmas communication I think that the years would wiz by and we’d lose touch with many – and then how could we drop in after so many years?.

Sadly Gavin’s mother died early in the year. She drifted quietly away without pain or distress and had retained her wicked sense of humour to the last. His father then decided to move to Melbourne to live with Leslie, Gavin’s sister and her family. He enjoyed several months with the fun and companionship of loving family before he too died in September. At 89 and 95 they both had a good innings.

We have had the usual travel in the Australian winter. Firstly, a nostalgic week in Cornwall where one of the highlights was a visit to the Eden Project. This amazing construction was funded by the Millennium Commission and masterminded by Tim Smit who is responsible for another favourite of ours The Lost Gardens of Heligan. It is a must see consisting of a series of Biomes, themselves a marvel of creative thinking housing plants from all over the world – but much more than that too.



We then ventured over to the continent with the caravan and met up with Helen’s sister, Jo in Geneva. Jo’s son Phil is now based there so we were able to take advantage of both his flat and his local knowledge. A visit to Mont Blanc was a must as was sampling the local food and wine. The general effects of altitude were surprising. Gavin and Phil needed a quick lie down whilst Helen and Jo remained upright and chatted but yawed incessantly!



This was followed by a wonderful week in Lake Garda with friends and is something that we have vowed to repeat. We picked up Gavin’s school friend Steve and wife Jilly as we motored through the French Alps en route to Narbonne, home of Gavin’s cousin Nancy and husband Sasha. Nancy was celebrating a significant birthday so it was party time for all. A great week in Canada with Pam and Robin and not so cooperative boat was the finale for our northern hemisphere peregrinations.

We spent the busiest ten days in Australia visiting Gavin’s father and Lianne, Glen and the girls in Melbourne, earning some money (ie working) and packing up the entire contents of the kitchen and dining area ready for renovations during our absence. We then set off for a wedding in Fiji and then on to New Zealand accompanied by Michael Sonia, Kellan, Baeddan and Aimee where we were joined by three other couples and motorhomed our way round the Rubgy World Cup. We had originally planned to be based around Christchurch to see all the Wallabies games but after the earthquake we needed to relocate. We managed to include a visit to Christchurch in our modified itinerary. It was challenging to witness the incredible devastation to such a beautiful city. Even having watched so much news footage at the time did not prepare for the extent of the damage. The locals are amazingly resilient and are moving forward with good spirits. Although many have already left the city and moved elsewhere we felt convinced that those who had chosen to remain will develop a changed and remodeled city to be proud of in such a beautiful location. http://hallingholidays.blogspot.com

Since returning to Australia Helen has continued to visit education students during their practicum for the University of Canberra and Gavin has the usual portfolio of work commitments. The renovations to kitchen and lounge/dining area or almost complete (just waiting for delivery of the Shoji Japanese screens to provide privacy and cosiness when we have B and B guests in the other parts of the house).

So we are ready to receive friends and relatives for visits. January is busy with B and B guests but Lianne and family are the first to stay in early February. Then we are looking forward to sister Jo’s visit in April for an Easter break.

The extended family continues to thrive. Kellan turned eight on Monday and celebrated with a pool party here. He was invested into Cubs last week having enjoyed two years as a Joey Scout. Baeddan is also in Joeys and enjoys team sports like Rugby Union. Little Aimee, now 31/2 is a charmer and leads her brothers and parents a merry dance. Tieve, now nearly six going on sixteen starts school in February. She attends ballet at The Ministry of Dance run by celebrity Jason Coleman. Seren tells Gran she is Seren’s best friend but we suspect that she has many of those! ‘Umpa’ Gavin just stirs up the excitement level and is lots of fun for all the grandchildren.



What a blessed life we lead!!

May your festivities be fun and family and may 2012 bring all those things you wish for.

With love, Gavin and Helen

The Halling 2010 Christmas Missive (well update)

Dear Friends,

We hope this finds you well and that 2010 has been good to you. You will be probably in shock receiving this so early compared to our normal timeline for the missive. However, as part of Helen’s 60th celebrations we are off to New York on the 3 December where after a couple of days we will board Queen Mary 2 bound for the Caribbean. As we do not return to Australia until the 22 December we clearly had to do the letter early.

For us this has definitely been a year of travel. We started by making good on a promise we made with friends, back during the Rugby World Cup in 2007 in France, to see all of the Brumbies matches live (our local Rugby Super 14 team). This meant expeditions to Perth, South Africa and a couple of trips to New Zealand. A wonderful time was had by all before H and G headed overseas to escape winter and took the ‘van to Ireland, Spain and Portugal. More great fun which has been recorded in our blog http://hallingholidays.blogspot.com/. Insomniacs this is a must read.

The year has also been a milestone as Gavin sold his share in “Best Practice Project Management” which has been a successful business over the last 10 years. He is semi retired as he is still working on his second consultancy “RiskTools” and although busy when in Australia claims no one can be considered working full time given all the travel we are doing.

By comparison Helen is a real lady of leisure, running a successful B&B, working part time for the Education department, helping out with the Grandchildren, keeping up with the demands of a book reading club, craft group, gardening and numerous keeping fit type classes. When we are both at home Helen’s activities are definitely the more manic!!

The other occupier of our time has been to build a new granny flat (84 sq metres) at the side/rear of our property and revamp the swimming pool area. It is a great area for lounging out in and all we now need to do is make the time to relax out there. We currently have rented out the flat to a great couple of American students. They are good fun, keep a pretty low profile and seem to spend every other weekend down in Wagga Wagga with her parents. The flat is part of our longer term retirement plans when the main house becomes too large to manage (probably several decades away the way we are going).

Since our return we have had several trips to see Gavin’s Mum and Dad. Dad is now 94 and looks after himself well despite very poor eyesight. However, Mum is becoming more and more frail and although perky during visits spends much of the time asleep in bed.

At the other end of the spectrum are the 5 grandchildren. Kellen and Baeddan continue to be significant wild ones and are constantly on the move. Helen looks after them one afternoon a week and at the end of this is pretty much ready for bed. They are great fun but our energy levels are not quite what they were when Michael and Lianne were 5 & 6 years old. Their sister Aimee is wonderful with a mass of blond curls and has all the males in the family at her beck and call from brothers to Umpa (granddad) not to mention her Dad. Michael and Sonia have extended their house, landscaped the garden and acquired a black Labrador puppy named Odin.

The Melbourne contingent are also great fun. Tieve is Miss Personality Plus and loves ballet, swimming and pontificating on the meaning of life. Seren, also a mass of curls, is quieter but is definitely beginning to assert her independent streak and is also a keen swimmer. Lianne has astounded her school community by editing and producing a spectacular school magazine with hundreds of photos taken by Lianne. Then to cap off an astonishingly busy year developed and produced the AV presentation and managed sound and AV for the school’s Presentation Night.

Looking to next year after a very busy and exciting Christmas and New Year we anticipate only one round the world trip and plan to take the ‘van to Switzerland and the Italian lakes before heading to Canada, a wedding in Fiji and then the rugby world cup in New Zealand. Trust all are well and happy. Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Helen and Gavin.

Below are some photos taken during a delightful weekend at the end of October to celebrate Helen’s 60th. We rented Ricks (Stein’s) beach house at Bannisters (in Mollymook on the NSW coast) and also managed to catch up with Mum and Dad.