The 2010 Diary/ planner.

The wife and I and our two girls, took a cruise earlier this year and liked it so much that the wife and I are taking another one next year. In appreciation of us booking with a particular Cruise company, they sent me a lovely and impressive A3 size Diary planner, complete with a few maps of the main capital cities of Oz. A wonderful and seemingly useful little gift.
However I am a small size diary man myself. You know: the size that fits into my shirt pocket. So although very impressed with this diary, I could not really see myself ever properly using it. So when my son started to enthuse over it too, I offered it to him. However he refused, saying he already has a diary in the shape of his I-phone (Or whatever it is) and so didn’t need or wouldn’t be able to use my diary either. So here I am with a very impressive product that I have no real need of, and unlikely to actually ever use for its proper purpose either.
Which made me wonder how many otherwise wonderful and useful products or objects we might have that we really can’t or won’t use for their proper purposes, but neither can we find proper homes for them either, but are also reluctant to otherwise get rid off?
What about you now, what good things do you have that you can’t or won’t ever use, but you are still reluctant to do away with? Perhaps there is an Op-shop or some Charity shop near you that might benefit from your unusable Gifts that will otherwise be wasted if you continue to hang on to them now? What say you now?

Going Away Again, Be Back Soon.

We are off again today for 14 days and not expecting to be near a computer till we get back on the 29^th of July. So see you then. Walter

Going Back To Places.

As you know by now, I finished my previous job at the end of June and am in the middle of a month’s break, before starting the new job in August. The first 10 days of our break was spent about 460 kms away interstate at a place called Wagga Wagga, where I first served as an Associate Pastor some 19 years ago. After that, we came back home for a medical assessment of previous ongoing Physiotherapy treatment of a back/nerve problem yesterday.

Now, today, we are heading to the beach at Philip Island. Yes I know it is crazy going to the beach in the middle of winter but we have got the use of a house there close to the beach, at an unbelievable cheap rate, so we are taking it up. Besides we will be using it as staging ground to visit various other familiar places nearby.

Philip Island is connected to the mainland by a long bridge at a place called San Remo in the Gippsland district about an hour or so’s drive from our part of Melbourne. One of my Aunts lived in nearby Wonthaggi and owned a holiday block at San Remo and so from my earliest memories we used to camp at this block in San Remo between Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Right up until the block its large shed and old bus that served as a communal bedroom, was sold. Later we stayed at her house in Wonthaggi. Later again, my wife and I even had our Honeymoon in Wonthaggi and have visited it and Philip Island a few times in the past, as recently as last year. Last year, we did nothing but rest, but this year we are taking two weeks and plan to revisit many of the old familiar places of my youthful memories.

In a earlier blog, “Going Back to People,” I mentioned that I am usually a people person rather than a places person, but I think all of us, every now and then just need to get away from our normality and go back to a familiar place and just stop and smell, no not the roses, but here, the salt air. again.

I thoughourly enjoyed the past 10 days with our friends, and even wished it could have been longer but I am also really looking forward to revisiting old memories again and drawing on them for fresh strength and insight.

Do you have a place where you can go and just relax and refresh yourself again? If so make the use of it as much as you can and rejuvenate yourself. Take care and I will catch you in a fortnight. Walter

Learn to use what you have …

I am at not, I repeat not, heart a technophile. Never was and probably never will be. This is not to say I don’t use technology, just that I put off learning how to unless I absolutely have too. Although we were only overseas for a little over 12 years it seems that those 12 years were ones of momentous change in Australia, which totally bypassed us in Umtata.

So much so that when we came back and in 2003 I bought a car which had Cruise control in I never knew how to use it. No one told me how and I never bothered to find out figuring it was some lazy technology that I could get a long without. However today, on the way back from Wagga Wagga I learnt a lesson about learning to properly use what I have or else pay the penalty.

Yeah! That’s right I got a speeding ticket, genuinely not noticing at that time that I was well over the limit. Earlier I had knowingly, but not intentionally been over the limit before realizing it and slowing down again. But this time I got caught.

And to rub salt into the wound, basically the first words the Police women said after telling me why she pulled me over, was, “Do you have Cruise control in the car?” And when told yes she said, ”Then I suggest you use it when you pull out of here”. She was actually quite nice and when I said I genuinely didn’t know how, she said her Partner would show me how after she had finished writing out the ticket. Which he did and so now I know how to use the cruise control in my car, but it was an expensive way to find out how, wasn’t it?

What about you? What technology do you have available to you that for whatever reason you have not bothered to find out how to use it for your advantage and protection, whether physically or financially? So the word of wisdom I bring you from my 10-day break away is to: “Learn to use that which is available to you now or pay the penalty”. Which, whether sooner or later, you will! Walter

Going Away, Back Soon.

We are off today for 10 days and not expecting to be near a computer till we get back on the 12^th so see you then. Walter

Going Back to People.

I finished my previous job last Friday and today is the beginning of a month’s break, before starting the new job in August. The first 10 days of our break will be spent about 5 or 6 hours away (depends how slow I drive) interstate at a place called Wagga Wagga, where I first served as an Associate Pastor some 19 years ago. Although there are only 3 or 4 still there of the people we knew at the church then, there are still a couple of dozen we know still in the district.

Although we spent over 12 months there and got to know the place well, it is not the place that we are re-visiting but the people. I have noticed over the years, and after many moves that although there are a few places that stand out in one’s memory, it is more often the people and not the place that attracts. (There are exceptions and soon I will have a blog on one of those areas.)

When we were there in 88, Wagga Wagga was touted as the largest in-land City in New South Wales; and. as such was the regional centre of a large rural farming area. It is a large well-presented City, with a large well-provided shopping Mecca for those more than 100 kms away. It has its own botanical Garden, with its own major Camellia Garden section and a miniature train and even a mini Zoo. So all in all, apart from the weather (very hot in Summer & very cold in Winter) it is not at all a bad place to live. If you have to live in NSW that is!!!

However for us here, the connection is the people and not the place. Since we left in early 89, we have been back there a few times (probably half a dozen over the time) and it is always the people and not the place that calls us back. That is not to say that we don’t enjoy revisiting some of the old places again and either marvelling or cringing at the changes. Just that it is the people that attract us again and again.

What about you? Are you largely a places person or a people’s person? Would you be happy alone on a deserted Island? Or do you still need people but wonder why they avoid you? If so it might pay to just stop for a while and examine how you treat other people. Instead of complaining why so and so hasn’t visited you, ask yourself how many times you have visited them in the same time line under discussion. If the count is in your favour, then you have a good augment, but if the number is even just neutral, then you my friend, are as much at fault as the other person. So, if this blog encourages you to think of somebody you haven’t seen or heard from for some time, make the effort to renew the contact, even if initially it is only a letter or phone call. This time it really is, all up to you to make the first move. Will you?

Going Away.

I finished my present job at the end of last week and having a month’s break, before starting the new job in August. I deliberately planned for being away for the whole of this month, not so much because I wanted to get away from home, but because I knew that if I stayed home, I would not get a real rest.

Despite the fact that there is plenty to do around the house, that is not why I want to get away from it. In truth I would love the freedom and opportunity to just potter around the house for a month doing the odd jobs that need doing. No that is not the problem.

The thing is that I have learnt from past experience that when people find that you are home, they want you to do things for them and you actually work harder running around after them than if you were still at work. It is sad to say but sometimes one simply has to walk away from things completely and get away for a while, just to get some quiet time for yourself.

This is not a new concept either, nor unique to me. In the Bible, in Mark chapter 6 verse 31, Jesus says to his Disciples, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Of course it goes on to say that it didn’t work and that Thousands also followed them, but somehow I don’t think I am going to have that problem, do you?

However the point I am trying to make is that all of us need to have a break from time to time and that break needs to be truly that, to be effective. A break from what we are doing and a chance to rest. Not stopping one task to do another.

Now we are actually very fortunate to be able to take a month off now, and again very fortunate to have two friends willing to put us up no charge for all that time. But one doesn’t always get that long a break. I am taking a month now, as I suspect it could be a while before I get another real chance for a proper rest.

But what about you? When was the last time you had a real rest? Even for a week? Even a weekend away? Maybe you to need to get completely away from home for a spell to do so. Fortunately we can leave our home and the two dogs in the capable hands of our children, but however you do it, do your best to get away every now and them for some genuine “you only” time. You really will benefit form it and so will others, when you come back refreshed and recharged. So where are you going and when? For us it is Wagga Wagga first and then Philip Island and its Penguins: Walter