Our African trip, December 2011
My wife and I have just returned from a six and a half week trip to Ethiopia, Morocco and Spain. During that time I wrote an extensive journal every day. In the coming weeks I will publish excerpts from that journal here on my writing site. It will include accounts of what we did, what we saw and reflections on what we experienced.
Sunday 4th December: Dubai Airport
I am writing this in Dubai Airport at 6:15am local time after an exhausting but great trip so far.
In the days leading up to our departure we were extremely busy, first packing up and cleaning my mother in law’s unit and shade house. A friend helped me with the dismantling of the shade house and moving the plants out to our place.
Over the last few days we made last minute preparations for our big adventure overseas. This included checking the plant dripper systems, cleaning the yard, mulching the roses and other plants and gathering all we needed for the trip, including last minute purchases like extra camera memory cards, medicines and so forth. We packed our bags and everything was ready to depart. A major last minute problem mid morning was Corinne misplacing her reading glasses which quite distressed her. She took her computer glasses instead.
Our friends arrived at 2pm to drive us to Adelaide Airport. We had a pleasant trip with lots of chatter, mainly from me as Corinne was quite subdued. We were both very tired and she was perhaps nervous about her journey. I know I was and this is quite normal.
Our flight was at 5:35pm so we had time to check in and then have a drink, a muffin and a slice of carrot cake. Our flight was delayed by 25 minutes but we made good time to Melbourne. It was odd going in the wrong direction, but Emirates do not fly out of Adelaide.
Our friends from Gisborne near Melbourne were waiting for us when we arrived and after getting our boarding passes we had a cuppa with them. It was great seeing them and chatting for an hour. We then went through security and customs before lining up to board. Our flight to Dubai was uneventful, generally smooth but very long. Favourable winds meant just over 13 hours of flight (instead of 14 hours) and we arrived at about 5am local time. Corinne managed a few hours’ sleep but I think I only had a few short naps. We bought a drink at Starbucks and sat there writing in our journals, waiting for our flight to Addis Ababa.
Further reading:
- Trevor’s Birding – about the birds I saw on my trip
- Trevor’s Travels – photos of places we went during our journey.
Adelaide Airport - waiting to leave on our overseas trip
Rose’s travel jottings
The last few weeks have been very busy. Our daughter Rose, a teacher in one of our rural high schools, has taken up a teaching position in a school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the rest of this year. My wife and I have been busy helping her to get ready for this big adventure as well as tidying her house and garden ready for a house sitter while she is away. It’s been an exhausting few weeks but now she is safely in her new environment and quickly adapting to life in a strange culture.
Good writing skills run in the family as she has reactivated her blog to help family and friends share in her adventure. Her site is called Rose’s Travel Jottings (click to access). I’d recommend a visit every few days, especially as she adds photos. And later in the year we are planning to visit her and then the three of us will travel several other countries together. Stayed tuned for our adventure too.
Good reading – and good writing.
Rose Hampel
Happy New Year
Adelaide International Rose Garden
Happy New Year to all my readers.
I hope the year 2011 brings you great joy, peace and at least some success with your writing. As I explained yesterday, one of my main goals for this year is to be published in a variety of forms: novels, picture books, articles, poems, short stories and whatever else life throws on to my path. I am also determined that this year will also see lots of submissions. If you are not submitting to publishers there is no way you can get published, so I’m determined that this is one area of my writing that needs to change.
Other goals:
Life is more than writing, of course, but over the last few years as I completed my MA Creative Writing degree there were some things which were neglected. As I said yesterday, I’m not really into making New Year’s resolutions. I’ve observed that most people don’t keep them however well intentioned they might be. I prefer setting firm goals with definite, achievable targets. My writing goals include a daily target for the number of hours spent on writing, the number of words written and the number of poems and stories submitted to publishers. I also have goals for other aspects of my life. These include:
- Reading: writers are readers so this is of utmost importance. This year I plan to read 100 titles (books and magazines; I read most of the magazines I get from cover to cover).
- Travel 1: I plan to visit my son and his family in Sydney.
- Travel 2: I plan to visit my daughter while she is teaching overseas.
- Exercise: I plan to exercise on average five times a week.
- Weight loss: I plan to lose 12kg this year through exercise and sensible eating.
- Hobby: I plan to go birding at least once a week, taking photos to share on my birding site.
I have many more smaller specific goals, such as cleaning out the garage, cleaning my office, gardening and so on. These are much more detailed plans and I won’t bore you with them here. I like making lists of things to do – and take pleasure in crossing them off when completed.
It looks like it is going to be another busy year.
I’d better plan to have times of relaxation too.
Good writing.