Christmas Letter 2003

Why a lighthouse on our Christmas letter?  Because we will spend four days including Christmas Day in the lighthouse keeper’s cottage here, with Judith and Will travelling from Melbourne and Cathy from Newcastle.  Green Cape is in Ben Boyd National Park in the far south of NSW and we will share the area with the kangaroos, fur seals and sea birds who are the permanent residents.  On Boxing Day we will progress to Melbourne for a short while, then return to Armidale before meeting our Austrian friends in Binna Burra in the Lamington National Park.  Four year old Agnes is Helen’s youngest Goddaughter and we are anxious to see the family again.

2003 has been memorable in many ways.  It has been our first year without David’s mother Anne, and we miss her.  David retired from Armidale High School in September after 15 years as Principal.  He was given a wonderful farewell by the school community and is in the process of discovering a new life outside school but not outside education.  We have had several trips to Melbourne to share Judith and Will’s new home in Seaford (and catsit our grandcat!).  Judith has a new position as audiologist with Australian Hearing and Cathy has a new position as Nurse Unit Manager at John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle.  We are delighted that retirement has given us the opportunity to at last spend time getting to know our cousins on both sides.  The ongoing family history research is addictive but we are almost too busy to indulge and find we have to discipline ourselves to make the time.

Musical highlights this year have included hearing Kiri te Kanawa in the Hunter Valley, David’s Choral Society concert (Faure Requiem) in conjunction with a visiting Welsh Choir and the ‘Night of Song’ Helen organised for Zonta with the opera singer Peta Blyth.  Next year David will again conduct ‘The Last Night of the Proms’ with the Armidale Symphony Orchestra on Mothers’ Day – it would be great if you could come.  We have subscribed to Opera Australia next year and hope to find the trips to Sydney manageable.

We are still vitally interested in education and have found new ways to be involved.  Helen taught the Learning Difficulties program at a local school for 14 weeks part time, and David is working from home, also part time, with the Professional Development and Leadership Faculty of the University of New England with overseas students on-line.  This  led to the most exciting part of our year – a consultancy in Bhutan.  We have just returned from 17 wonderful days evaluating the monitoring and support system of the Bhutan Department of Education.  This is the most amazing country (see photos) – mountains everywhere, huge rivers, valleys of rice terraces, gentle people and a formal education system (with English as the main language of instruction) only 40 years old.  Next year promises to be just as exciting.  In April Helen’s American cousins are coming and we will travel with them for 6 weeks, from Melbourne to Fraser Island and everywhere in between.  We are so looking forward to getting to know them and show them ‘our’ Australia.  In September we will go to them in Michigan for the McWhirter Reunion and to see their homeland.  Our grandfathers were brothers who left Scotland as young men 100 years ago, and we are all so thrilled to be meeting each other for the first time after establishing contact via email.  We also hope to go to Europe – but that is next year’s story!

You’ve probably gathered that we can recommend retirement, the only problem being shortage of time for all we want to do.  You’ll understand that!   We look forward to hearing of your year and your plans, and would really love to see you before too long.