Christmas 2009 (part 3) - travel, visitors and other stuff

Apart from all the driving on dusty roads, I have also been doing quite a bit of flying. Work sees me traveling to Darwin on a fairly regular basis, but i have also been traveling interstate as a National Rep for the NT Greens. I have been to National meetings in Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne. This has enabled me to catch up with some friends and family throughout the year which has been nice. Being more involved in the Greens has been really interesting too and I am impressed at what integrity exists at all levels of the Party.

I had a number of visitors during the year including two brothers and their respective partners. In July Mark and Bec drove up here for a holiday and I enjoyed going out and camping with them a bit. Pete and Sue also visited in Sept and they got to see quite a bit of country in just one week. It was nice to spend more time getting to know Sue and seeing Pete so happy after a tough couple of years.

I have made a few trips back to melbourne during the year, one of them specially to see my new little niece Clara (Dave and Fran's third and final child). It is lovely to have a niece but equally lovely to see my two nephews growing up so beautifully and playing together and being so cute with their little baby sister. I am heading down to Melbourne for Christmas and New Years and am then heading off to a conference in Hawaii to present a paper at a conference in january based on some research I am doing with a colleague in Canada.

It feels like it has been another long year and I'm not sure that I got the work/life balance right all the time, something I want to work on next year. My friend Cameron, from Perth, has been writing his Masters thesis this year and sent me a copy to read recently. It focuses on Living Simply as a way to challenge the Consumption that seems to dictate everything in our modern world. Reading it has challenged me to think about some of the choices I make and I am hoping to make some meaningful changes to my life in the light of these new thoughts.

I hope that you and those you love are able to say and show how much you mean to each other this Christmas and that you are all happy living your lives wherever you are. I hope our paths will cross in 2010.

Peace xx