Here I am, on Christmas day, dictating the newsletter to my phone. 2013 was a busy year for us settling into our new home in Yamba. We just celebrated 1 year in Yamba with a party on our back deck for 30 people. All were new friends and their partners we've met since we moved here. Most of the year we've spent setting up our new home. We added a pantry and dishwasher to the kitchen, installed 2 televisions, built-in wardrobes in both bedrooms (who builds houses without wardrobes?!), weeded the yard and did the inevitable maintenance on the the two tenant's places.
Bobbie has re-established her jewellery studio, and is making and selling the creative results. She has also joined the local Arts an Crafts Group and has her jewellery for sale in their co-op gallery at nearby Maclean. A piece she entered in their annual award show was highly commended. Not too bad for a first go. Bill has refurbished his boat and has finally completed a club race just before Christmas. He has also taken Bobbie's cousin Janet (visiting from Canada) for a sail.
We had an exciting introduction to life in the sub-tropics during January to March of 2013. During January, massive storms flooded and washed tons of driftwood down the Clarence River that flows through Yamba. Instead of moving out to sea, as it usually does, the wood washed back onto all of our beaches, up to a metre deep in places, leaving the local Council with a massive clean-up headache. The heavy flooding also caused a lot of damage in low-lying areas and Yamba was cut off from the main highway for 5 days. Luckily, our house is up quite high so the flooding does not affect us. Later in March, storms again cut the Pacific Highway near the coast. This forced us to travel to Sydney via the New England Highway (the inland route) on our way to meet friends in Sydney.
As far as travel is concerned, we have been back to Sydney (700 km) 3 times. Bobbie was also back in Canada in November, as her mother, Lucille, passed away this year and she went back to spend some time with her sister Naomi and settle the estate. During the year we also spent 10 days minding a motel. A friend of Bobbie's, who owns the motel in Hawks Nest (about 2 hours north of Sydney) needed a vacation to visit her daughter in Vanuatu. We haven't completely forgotten about our camping and have been camping for 2 weekends in nearby national parks. We also spent two weeks travelling and camping with Canadian friends Mike and Rhonda when they visited Australia for 3 months. It was good to catch up with them and share some travels. They later visited us in Yamba before heading home. No long trips were taken but our plan is to do more camping in the new year. We have also been to Port Macquarie to a craftshow/ exhibition where Bobbie displayed and sold some jewellery. In Port Macquarie we stayed with a friend Peter Thompson and caught up with Dave Moxon another old friend from Sydney
We are thoroughly enjoying the slow and easy life in Yamba with a weekly routine much different from that in Sydney. On a normal day we walk to the beach and go for a run and/or a swim. Bill dips his toe in occasionally Bobbie always swims. Wednesday is market day, in the park near the lighthouse, where we pick up fresh fruit and vegetables for the week after our trip to beach. Additionally Bobbie swims 3 times a week with the local masters swim club as well as swimming on Sundays with the surf club as she has for many years now. She has also joined the local surf club and is already involved in an executive role. Bill does the sailing race most wednesdays, and usually goes to the Yacht Club bar on Friday nights.
Keeping fit and doing regular exercise has insured our health has remained good despite Bill having a swollen foot and cellulitis from an ant or spider bite and spending a couple of weeks recovering.
In other activities Bobbie has been going to the Men's Shed (oops Women's Shed) every Friday and has completed several projects. The first was a wooden toolbox so she can carry her tools to and from the shed. The second was refinishing a stool and the third is a very elaborate 11 spool clothes rack to hang under the model boat ( built by her grandfather ) which functions as a hat shelf by our front door. See picture below
P. S. Dictating to the phone was OK, but the extensive editing required didn't save much time. BTW my new phone is a Phablet - Sony Xperia Z Ultra with 6.44“ screen...
Best wishes for the New Year and we hope it is happy and healthy for you.
Cheers,
BiLL & Bobbie
M: 0411 877 499 / 0412 832
