Marg, Dave and Steph had the perfect follow on from the wedding.  A couple of weeks in Noosa can eliminate any tension from the intense planning and delivery that took place around the wedding.

Activities included:

• walking the Noosa National Park
• viewing long board surfing championships
• Eumundi Markets
• Maleny and Montville shopping
• Imbil Red Rattler train and Sunday markets
• Sunset cruise
  
  Devonshire teas all over the region
  - B&B Kenilworth
  - The Edge, Montville
  - Booreen Point
  - The Big Pineapple
  - The Ginger factory
  and many more

Two weeks is simply not long enough for this life style...roll on retirement

 

As many would know, March 13th 2010 was a very special day in the life of Mel & Mark.  At 5pm on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, they joined a crowd of their friends at Rupertswood Mansion in Sunbury.
The day and night was fabulous with everything going pretty much as planned.  It was a wonderful to see all that planning come to life.
There are many stories to be told so I hope those that attended will use this article to add their special story as a comment.

For mine, one of the highlights was accompanying Mel in the horse and carriage through the main street of Sunbury as we travelled for 20 minutes from home to the Mansion.  It felt surreal to have complete strangers calling out their congratulations and little kids excitedly waving to this strange sight in the streets of Sunbury.

Of course there were a few stories in the background that many would not have seen.  The preparations were performed in military precision at home with makeup artist and hair dresser working together to progressively create the exquisite appearance of all the girls.  Melissa, one of the bridesmaids, was last in queue given that she spent most of the morning looking after her sick partner at the Melton Emergency Medical Centre. 

As a result of several phone calls with Mark during the day I was also aware that the Best Man, Chris, was doing a great job keeping Mark focused on the job ahead.  In between trips to the shops tobuy last minute clothing and picking up visitors from the airport I believe they had to visit the pub in order to calm the growing nerves.  They did manage to invest wisely though as they won the local meat tray raffle at the pub.

You can tell us your story of the day by using the comment section attached to this article.  There are also a growing list of photos being provided by guests.  I have opened a Flickr account which is linked to our photo gallery page on this website.  Keep an eye on this over the next few weeks as it grows with new submission.

The venue is booked, the RSVPs have been received and dresses are ready to go. All we need is a reasonable weather outlook and all will be ready.

Bridie O'Reilly's rocked as always on Saturday 6 March.  The boys used it as a base for Mark's buck night.  This is a family site so the only picture to go on this site is the logo.  Full details will need to be elicited from Mark. Suffice to say that a 4:30am finish left lots of time to party.

As for the girls I hear that Chapel St is to get a treat from Karaoke at Strike Bar.  The bowling was serious and the game of pool also brought out some of the lost youth.
Word has it that once the oldies went home, the youngies partied on until 3am or so. 

Hello, its Marg here...back in the land of the living having been the only person who has gone to Broome without taking the bathers out of the bag.  I just treated myself to a movie, namely Bran Nue Dae. I can thoroughly recommend with Missy Higgins a delight, Jessica Mauboy wowed me, Geoffrey Rush great as usual, but Ernie Dingo was absolutely delightful.


I understand that Brent & Jane and Jeanette & Stuart share my view that you should get along to see it.

Sunday 7th Feb saw Norm combine in the team Ironman event at Geelong with Elle and Nick.

Over 1,100 triathletes descended on spectacular Eastern Beach for the Australian leg of the international Ironman 70.3 Series, the world's fastest growing triathlon series.

Comprising a 1.9km swim, 90.1km ride and 21.1km run, this is the second year Geelong has hosted Australia’s Ironman 70.3 event, which also serves as the final race for the 2008/09 Australian Half Ironman Series.

Snap Ironman 70.3 Geelong has attracted 1,050 individual and 95 team entrants, surpassing last year’s entry numbers. It has also attracted one of the best professional fields ever assembled for an Australian Ironman event.

The "Boys & Elle" powered through the course in 5hr 3m 27secs placing them in 35th position.
This comprised a PB for Norm in the swim of 38:27, a PB for Ellie in the run of 2:00:06 and Nick rode the bike leg in 2:20:39, also a PB.
Norm tells me that the field swam from 28m to 55m with plenty of young kids and 3 oldies.  I wonder whether he has considered himself one of the oldies

For Mel and Mark's birthday we all went to Pandora.  For those who have seen Avatar 3D you know what I mean.  After three hours of cinematic magic you feel like you have vaulted through the trees and fought the battles with amazing creatures and horrendous gunships, all in the name of saving the trees.  I could not help describing it as an experinece, not a movie.

This could be classified by the National Trust as these grumpy old men gathered to reminisce over the last 40 odd years since we went to school together. All the old stories, and a few new ones, as Bruce, Tony, Dave, Adrian and Brent caught up at Southbank on 15 January.  We took advantage of Adrian "passing through" on his way from Perth and back to Canada.

 

Not quite New Year but a great time spent in Broome.  After cyclone Laurence it was lacking humidity but still around 35 degrees.  Marg and I spent a few days relaxing, seeing local sights like Willie Creek pearl farm and enjoying a fabulous timeshare apartment.
We did spend 3 hours at the Broome hospital where we watched several aboriginal kids come in with stinger wounds and Marg was diagnosed with shingles.  All power to Marg - her very painful condition seemed to only make it easier to relax.

One of the highlights was the flight over Australia which was showing the signs of 4 inches of rain from the cyclone. Lake Eyre was full and Australia looked like one big lake from 30,000ft.   The Qantas pilot was thoughtful enough to take us lower and completely circle Uluru for great views from both sides of the plane.

Alison and Marg arrived in Canberra on Friday 22 January with the exciting prospect in mind to visit the Masterpieces of Paris exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia.  Saturday was allocated and I tagged along with relatively low expectation.  After a solid 3 hours of inspection, audio explanation of 31 of the 112 masterpieces and respectful jostling with several hundred other patrons, I can say that I have never been so impressed.  It was awesome.  Everyone make sure you make it up here to see something that will give you a whole new appreciation of the fine arts.

We were greeted in the first room by Madame Roger Jourdain whose painted highlights on the dress was truely stunning.  I cannot imagine how paint (now over 100 years old) could be made to look like it was shimmering.  Absolutely stunning.  This was an example of how the Impressionists painted in a spontaneous and luminous style using a palette based on pure or unmixed colour.

The next room, to me, was the most revealing with examples of Pointillism and Divisionism where the artist used dots or small strokes of complementary colour side-by-side to create the new colour that your eye would see. Using pairs of opposites from the colour spectrum (red/green, blue/orange, yellow/violet) they are able to create greater vibrancy.

The next room was Cezanne and van Gogh. Starry Night is stunning.  How could someone apply colour to a canvas over a 100 years ago and it now looks like they have put little electric globes in little holes in the canvas (you know like those quirky pictures you can get for your bar).

After several more rooms, each with new revelations we came near the end after 3 hours of intense interest, reading and listening to the audio explanations.  Alison found her favourite, Les Muses by Maurice Denis 1893. 


I hope you all get a chance to go to Canberra and see this for yourself before 5 April.