Sunday - Thursday, October 21 - 25 2012 (diary)

October 22 was an important day for our family. After a 12 months trial period, Jai was officially recognised by the Family Court as Jeroen and Lisa's adopted son. From now on he officially will have the name of Jia Furstner and has become an Australian citizen.

I was pleased with the Magistrate, who was obviously experienced in this type of hearing and addressed Jia directly in a very friendly down to earth manner he appreciated and understood.
(Although Jai was rather shy about having his photo taken.)

The weather is definitely in build up mode. Warm, sunny but with many clouds, high humidity and little rain. I have purchased a small rain gauge to record the rainfall we have this summer. So far we had two downpours of 25 mm each plus this week another 8mm. So the total rainfall for October here at the farm stands at 58 mm.

The mangos are nearly ripe, just another week or two and they will be ready for my breakfast.   The mango geese are less fussy however and have been feasting on green and half ripe ones for many weeks already.

Friday - Wednesday, October 26 - 31 2012 (diary)

Not much to report, except for a massive downpour of rain this Sunday morning of 78mm, bringing the total for this month to 136 mm.
But rest assured we will get lots more, although only a "mild cyclone season" has been forecast.
The mangos are getting there, the first ripe ones have been plucked.

I am on a couple of new writing projects again, one writing a new Intermediate Bridge Course, the other adding a travel section to my website, organising my experiences and photos from my journeys through Europe over the past 5 years. That could be useful to other travelers to that continent.

I was in the strange situation last week of having access to a great venue in Bees Creek but no interest in bridge there, while in Darwin I have plenty of students but without a place to teach. The Casuarina Club is converting their conference room I was using, into a new bar and there is no other suitable area in that club to conduct bridge lessons.
Fortunately the Tracy Village Club has come to the rescue and let me hold lessons in their Boardroom. Tracy Village was constructed as a camp for workers rebuilding Darwin after Cyclone Tracy destroyed it in 1972.
I will conduct my first bridge lesson in the new venue on Sunday week.