Volume 7, Issue 8

Wednesday 11 May, 2011

Greetings from Penrhyn Avenue, Melbourne, site of the ancestral de Araugo family home and presided over by my mother Mary The Indomitable.

Four weeks in Melbourne have zoomed by. Not quite sure how. We seem to be eating a lot. Partly that’s because we are staying at my mother’s still. Partly its because we are resuming a life and catching up with friends, typically over a meal.

We are making progress I guess. The Poto Road sale has settled and the money is in the bank. Wring side of the ditch but we’ll get to that. Crumble’s Beemer sold quite quickly but my Merc has been hard to shift. It finally went just yesterday – so great joy on that score.

We have bought one car. Wait for it – it’s a 2002 /3 black Porsche Boxster. Rag top. Manual gear box. Yippee. I don’t think I have stopped grinning. I thought Crumble was joking when we stopped at a Porsche shop after trawling around Melbourne in search of BMW Z4s. Turns out he was serious. The drive way at Penrhyn is long, narrow, uphill and rose bush encrusted, so I have been relieved that I have been able to negotiate that successfully. And using the mirrors. I had another back episode on Good Friday so twisting is not an option for me – still.

Crumble’s transport will come from the balance of the car budget allocation. He is nobly considering unicycles as his transport mode, in an effort to make me feel guilty. It’s not working. I have been amused by Porsche reactions from members of my family, by the way. I am certainly the odd one out in the set.

We have consciously decided to rent for ourselves and continue to view Locke Street as a rental property (which we will probably be selling, but that’s another story). We have travelled probably 600km around Melbourne, looking at places we might live in. We have gradually got our act together and become clearer about the marriage between what we want and what is possible. Two cats impose some constraints and secure parking for the Porsche another with three very large pieces of Blackwood furniture completing the set of issues for us to accommodate. The furniture led us to rule out heaps of great places in South Yarra and Toorak, which was a pity. Anyway, cutting to the chase we have finished up in Kew. Still on Melways Map 45, but only just at B3! It has ticks in all the boxes except for trains /tram access. But we don’t live in a perfect world I guess. 4 Cremin Close is the address and having signed the lease we are set to move in on Monday 16 May. Next task is coming to grips with internet connection and how to achieve that speedily. The information available is soooo confusing.

The cats by the way are greatly enjoying their stay at Mary’s. It’s to do with the gas heater. Moneypenny thinks this kind of heat source is the best thing invented. She stretches out on the floor hogging the space immediately in front of it. Luxury.

The tabby from over the back fence continues to have our two bluffed by the way. James Bond in particular is very reluctant to venture outside. Moneypenny is not so bad, but she does take refuge up on the garage roof a bit. So avoiding the issue one might say. We discover that we have to get them registered with the local Council – which involves compulsory micro-chipping. That might have to wait until we have access to their vet records.

I am relieved to report that the Bunnings visits have subsided. Charles Street is now let (the cause of the multiple visits) and we have been focused on getting ourselves sorted. I suspect that when we get up to dealing with the upstairs bathroom issue at Locke Street we will become Number 1 Ticket Holders. But not yet…

Ah, the autumn sun to which I referred in the last Quake and the cotton T-shirts? Well winter approaches and Icebreakers are back on the agenda. It was nice while it lasted.

Well – that’s all for now

From

Dr Quake (Jill) & Dr Crumble (Neil)

Volume 7, Issue 7

Monday 25 April 2011

Greetings from Penrhyn Avenue, Melbourne, site of the ancestral de Araugo family home and presided over by my mother Mary The Indomitable. Hard to believe that the last Quake was sent from Poto Road the day before I finished up at Chilton. Seems like a lifetime ago in a number of ways and only a heartbeat back in others.

You will realize that, being in receipt of a Quake, we have sorted temporary internet access! Other contact details are:

Dr Quake (Jill) +61 48801 8797

Dr Crumble (Neil) +61 422 9191 22

With our email addresses as previously.

My last day at Chilton was a very special one. The short version of this story is that we had an absolutely fantastic whole school assembly which was a feast of music. Three girls (Azmarah in Year 6 and Mikie the Head Girl and her Deputy Lucy) spoke really well and presented me with a marvelous album, which I will treasure. In the evening there was a cocktail function for the adult groups – staff, Board, parents, Old Girls, colleagues. My 2-i-c, now Principal Elect, spoke really well and the Board Chair also. All in all it was as informal as it was possible to make it while still being “appropriate”.

Recounting logistical details, the sale of Poto went through without any real hitch in the end, with settlement on Maundy Thursday. The money is in the bank, as they say. We recovered the cost of purchase and the cost of sale, which is the good news. Lost on the perishingly poor exchange rate – but I guess that’s a case of c’est la vie. Crumble’s Beamer has sold, both beds, so it’s just my Merc to go. I am amazed it is proving so hard to shift. It is a lovely car and a great buy. I guess an indicator of the NZ economy.

Our stuff (and believe me when I say there is lots of it!) was uploaded without incident. Our program of planned red wine consumption, combined with strategic ferrying courtesy of my two trips for Leadership Victoria, saw a grog free container in the end. We were absolutely delighted of course - ha ha Mr Swan – no duty payable by these little black ducks! The shifting guys were rueful about the number of boxes of books they had to ferry up our quite steep driveway. Poor devils. Not to mention solid blackwood furniture.

Now we are on the ground in Melbourne and doing some reconnaissance on apartments/houses to rent, our resolve to down size stuff is re-affirmed. We’ve done a preliminary skirmish across a wedge of Melbourne’s suburbs from East Melbourne, St Kilda and Elwood through Elsternwick and Caulfield up as far as Balwyn and Kew. That has helped us refine our thinking a bit and we are off to see the accountant in the next day or so before really throwing ourselves into the rental fray in earnest. We start paying for storage from 2 May, so no mucking around. An issue will be that we actually need some space to get things sorted into keep or sell piles. Very tricky.

Another after Easter treat will be the Car(s) Decision. Zero, one or two? Roofless or not? Back seats or not? Stay tuned on that one!

The cats travelled over on the same plane as us and have settled in at Penrhyn Avenue pretty well after a prolonged dram at the QANTAS cargo terminal. Very unimpressive. I let them venture outside as from last Sunday and they have subsequently struggled a little to carve a niche from under the feet of the tabby from over the back fence. A small puss but feisty, and importantly, with unclipped claws. Our two are at a bit of a disadvantage in that regard and both are licking wounds currently – literally.

Some of the Quake readership will be amused to learn that since our return to Melbourne we have spent quite a lot of time at Bunnings. A bed-sit we own in St Kilda is untenanted at present and in need of some TLC. We have been painting and doing some repairs. With no power connected of course, we are confined to working only during daylight hours and pick up after ourselves by hand rather than vacuum cleaner. Very efficient! We keep on not having the tools we need (they are in the container), hence multiple trips to Bunnings. Torture. I think Crumble has been doing it deliberately!

We have been enjoying Melbourne’s autumn sun and I have worn cotton T-shirts every day since our return. Believe it or not but I have been an Icebreaker free zone!

Well – that breaks the back of getting you up to date. That’s all for now

From

Dr Quake (Jill) & Dr Crumble (Neil)

Volume 7, Issue 6

Greetings from Wellington.

Woo hoo. Where did that month go? The last Chronicle was 13 March – exactly one month before our departure date. Lots of people have been asking me if I have been in count down mode. My truthful answer has been no – until now.

Selling real estate in this country is an interesting experience. Despite having received and accepted an offer ages ago, no money changed hands and both vendor and purchaser can re-neg – it’s weird. This means that the place stays on the market until the deal goes “unconditional”. So we have lived in excessive tidiness for weeks and weeks and cleared out every Sunday afternoon for open homes to proceed. Thank goodness it went unconditional last week, so that is a major job ticked off on the to do list.

We have commissioned a friend to sell the cars and happily there are some nibbles on those - finally. With any luck they’ll sell over the weekend. One bed has gone to the son of a Chilton teacher. He is setting up house for the first time with his girlfriend so we sent them off with crockery and cutlery and glassware and linen and and and – it was a win-win! Two book cases are earmarked for a Board member. Although their call to come and get them is long delayed I have realized. That deal may be about to fall over! Stop press – it’s on, but only one bookcase.

A former member of my staff, recently returned from a stint in Singapore, generously offered to host a private party for us at their fabulous home. After umming and ahing we agreed and that was Friday night. It was actually nice to have the chance to mingle with a small group of people with whom I have worked most closely and of whom I am fond. The Official Bash is on Monday night. I have managed to persuade my Chair that one function is the way to go. One speech to write that way. Problem is that I used a modified version of the speech as my editorial for my last weekly bulletin and now feel I need to do something different. More writing.

I think that departing feeling has been accelerated by arriving home from work on Friday. Between two professional packers and Dr Crumble, a huge amount of stuff had been disappeared into boxes, rooms and walls cleared and generally great leaps taken towards exiting. Apparently one of the guys has a 3 year old son and he was sidetracked (the packer I mean) by our collection of picture books and children’s books. He was reading instead of packing. Same guy finished going away with a whole box of titles of which we had doubles plus a spare teddy bear, so he was pretty happy.

The rest of the packing happens tomorrow. So after I have done this Quake, I will be up to getting gear needed for the next few days into bags which wont go into the container. All good fun. Right.

Did I say that I had enrolled in the Experience Bank program run by Leadership Victoria? Well I have. That has entailed two flying trips to Melbourne for the day of 23 March and again for 6 April. The 6 April was particularly relaxing because my syndicate was the duty group and of all the tasks to be done for the day I landed the job of preparing the research paper and presenting it to set up the day. I think that takes a really special sort of talent! Duh!

The next Quake will be sent from Melbourne and I don’t know how long it will take for us to become communicado. We are staying with my mother in the first instance and 03 9889 3276 is the landline there.

That’s all for now

From

Dr Quake & Dr Crumble

Dr Quake’s Chronicle, Volume 7, Issue 5

Greetings from Wellington.

Earthquakes seem to have dominated life here since 22 February. Poor old Christchurch is devastated. Apart from the significant loss of life, the city is now on its knees in an economic sense. And with it the nation I’d say.

At Chilton we are hosting 7 or 8 girls, refugees from a range of Canterbury schools. We have had an extraordinary mufti day – red and black theme (the Canterbury colours) universally adopted. The school looked fantastic I’d have to say. And last Thursday we had a K to 13, House based sponsored walk to raise money. The sun shone and tit was a fabulous event. With any luck a lot of money will have been raised as well. Members of the public were stopping their cars and pressing notes onto the girls as they walked.

Of course the two quite big quakes we had in Wellington last week plus the big quake in China and the monster quake in Japan on Friday have fuelled a level of anxiety which is threatening to steamroll the Chilton OSH Committee. I have new insights into how runs on banks work. Sales of gas cooking units and big plastic containers for storing water are walking out of places like Bunnings.

After a whirlwind of open homes we accepted an offer on Poto Road a week or so ago. It is like playing poker I’ve decided. Turns out their financing was partly dependent on mortgaging a property in, you guessed it, Christchurch. We now don’t know what the state of play is at all. Suffice to say we live in an agony of tidiness and depart every Sunday afternoon to keep the way clear. Wearing thin I’d have to say.

We are about to lock in to a removal company. After no hassles entering NZ, we are appalled to learn that we will have to pay duty on all wine and spirits we seek to land in Oz unaccompanied. Bloody cheek I’d say. Not as though we have either in commercial quantities. We have put in place a cunning plan to ensure the Australian government makes no profit from our return. But we will have to maintain a cracking pace of consumption. Oh well – someone has to do it.

The quiet and bitter battle over the cats has been waged and ended. I opted for a Socratic approach. While we are both well aware the two cats will limit the range of accommodation options available for rent in Melbourne, adopting out a cranky old bastard like James Bond was never really an option. Moneypenny is relishing having become an outdoor cat and is a rotten stay out. We see little of her these days.

We are grappling with the logistics of the shift at present. The plan is to downsize and rent – issue is what to do with all our excess stuff – of which there I heaps. Sell it here or back in Melbourne. Et etc etc Now I the time for a magic wand really.

Crumble has applied for a job in Melbourne this weekend – immediate start. The odds are he’ll get it I reckon. That would be poetic justice, making me Office In Charge Of Re-settling! Yippee – that way I’d get to choose the cars. Yes, there is a god.

Ah. We have a definite shift date. We fly our of Wellington on 13 April, just one month from today.

That’s all for now from

Dr Quake & Dr Crumble

Dr Quake’s Chronicles Vol 7 Issue 4

Greetings from Wellington.

Big quake in Christchurch this afternoon is dominating the news here. I’ve been lining up special services for the morning with the Chaplain and talking to members of staff who have family connections in Christchurch. It doesn’t look too good down there. I reflect on our own personal state of readiness and it is not terrific. I keep on meaning to do something about that and keep on doing nothing. Hmm.

Otherwise, the whirl of the start of the new school year has continued pretty much as usual. Lots of nights out hosting evenings for parents to meet the members of staff caring for their daughters this year. Sunday night’s cathedral service marks the end of the beginning of the year, thank goodness.

It has been gratifying that over the course of all these functions so many parents have seized the opportunity to speak with me and express their regret that I am leaving. Sometimes, with nose firmly applied to the grindstone, one wonders if anyone really gives a damn. Apparently they do.

Dr Crumble has been busy busy busy. He has been working very solidly on Lule’s thesis. This has been a very long story of one step forward and seemingly two steps back throughout. She had the bricks put to her by her university – show cause why you should retain you job without a PhD – some chap recently finished his has put up his hand for Lule’s classes. This had the effect of galvanizing Lule into fevered action. Hours and hours of Skype later, Crumble wrote the sign off letter last week and the production moves to the next phase. Her university uses the North American model – internal examiners and then Viva Voce and/or Full Defence. I am not sure what the difference is between the Viva and the Defence but either way it sounds like an opportunity for academic with an axe to grind with the poor candidate’s supervisor can eviscerate the candidate in a public display of brutality with impunity and regardless of how well informed they are about the aspect of the thesis which they are gnawing at. Having knocked over Lule he moved onto Richard’s. This seems to have been faster in these closing stages and I believe he has signed off on that one also.

So a man of leisure I hear you all think. Oh no. Crumble has picked up some consultancy work with Retail and more importantly, is Officer In Charge of Shift. Poto Road has been on the market for a week and a half and we have had 20 or so lots of people through with about 8 or so repeat visitors. The Agent is now marshalling offers. We would rather accept a lower offer as long as it is not conditional on the sale of another property. The market here is pretty depressed and the recession shows no sign whatsoever of abating. Not the Lucky Country. Removalists are in the process of quoting for us. We definitely need to rationalize our stuff as it is going to cost an arm and a leg to move it and then store it until we have figured out where to live.

If any of you have any ideas about jobs, I’d be very pleased to hear them by the way. The only absolutely fixed item is that whatever it is I’ve gotta be able to ski in the northern hemisphere in late January/February. That rules out schools!

That’s all for now from

Dr Quake & Dr Crumble

Dr Quake's Chronicles Volume 7, Issue 3

Greetings from Wellington.

Dr Crumble and I enjoyed a fab dinner on Friday night at Logan Brown – one of the swisher restaurants in Windy Wellington. We were celebrating Neil’s last day at the Retail Institute. This means that on Monday morning I will have to remember that he is unemployed and stir myself out of bed to be on time for work. While he may well consult/do some contract writing for them in the coming weeks, for the moment at least he is a gentleman of leisure.

Actually it was a double celebration. I tendered my resignation from my role at Chilton at the start of December and with the company of my Board, have been sitting on the information for nearly two months. I announced my decision to staff at the first staff meeting, held on Wednesday and parents / caregivers were advised in writing in Thursday’s post. I had been hanging in my straps a bit. It is good to be out in the open.

I have a 6 month notice period but in discussions with the Board across December and January we have agreed that I will take some of my accrued annual leave during the notice period and that my last day will be Monday 11 April. An odd day perhaps, but it separates farewells from the Easter Services on Thursday 14 and Friday 15 April and conveniently coincides with the scheduling of the usual weekly Principal’s Assembly. Efficient and no fuss.

In anticipation of likely questions some of you might have…

Why – where has my decision come from? My sabbatical leave last year gave me the time and space to reflect on the things that really matter. My experiences here and across the Ditch in recent years have taught me powerfully that life is short and relationships matter very much. I have been reminded of who I am and what I value. My mother’s very dear sister Edith died in December 2009 and her remaining sister Lucy died in December 2010. My cousin Peter was murdered not long after our return from overseas. The long-term partner of a very dear friend of Neil and mine dropped dead totally unexpectedly during fourth term. In this context the facts that Mary de Araugo turns 95 on her next birthday and Neil, who was fifteen years older than me when we were married and unsurprisingly is still fifteen years older than me, is not far off approaching his 70^th birthday have confronted me over the course of the year in 2010. Thus, compelling personal reasons have led me inexorably to a turning point after having completed six years as Principal of Chilton Saint James School.

Crumble and I intend to return to Australia to be closer to family and in particular, to my mother. We will base ourselves in Melbourne in the first instance and see what happens after that. I anticipate that we will be back in Melbourne by the end of April and maybe sooner.

I have had to overcome my terror of an immediate future without a job. Now that I have moved beyond fear, I actually feel quite liberated - I am still grappling with the question of what I want to do when I grow up! I have enrolled in the Experience Bank Program with Leadership Victoria – a program targeted at people like me in the 45 + age bracket and with substantial leadership experience already. I hope to meet a lot of interesting people through this and with luck, my future employer. I am not ready not to work but do realize that picking up a job may take some time.

That’s all for now from

Dr Quake & Dr Crumble

Dr Quake’s Chronicles Volume 7, Issue 2

Sunday 23 January, 2011

Creakings from Wellington – oops I mean greetings from Wellington.

Crumble and I have been back in New Zuland for just over a week and are going for the Guinness Book of Records in terms of amassing trips to the chiropractor. We have groaned out of the blocks each morning and have probably worked more productively in our time.

Our chiro is a really great bird called Jane. Little by little she is getting all the bits back to where they are meant to be. It is not a comfortable process and really illuminates the aging process – which as we all know is better than the alternative but which is nevertheless disheartening in terms of limitations on performance and extended recovery times!

Looking back it was a fantastic trip to Canada. We certainly had a bit of everything in terms of weather – zero plus temperatures with rain (oh joy) at both Whistler and Fernie which turned snow to gelati and taxed legs sorely. Way way sub -20 temperatures at Fernie made it too cold to stay out long. But for the most part it was -10 to -15 which is very comfortable, heaps of snow, lots of powder days (yippee) and generally great skiing.

My downfall was in fact Fernie. Small enough for it to be absolutely sensible to ski in home at lunchtime, take off wet layers to dry and (herein I note was the trap for old players) scoff a handful of Vitamin I tablets (Ibuprofen for the uninitiated). This meant that, fortified by Vitamin I, Quake was able to ski on through the day and have heaps of fun. By contrast at Whistler, which is way too big to go home for lunch and given that Quake is way too disorganized to take drugs in her pockets in the morning for consumption later, as the day progressed and the bodily discomfort increased, I throttled back little by little. I suspect the Whistler approach saved the aging body whereas the Vitamin I break kept me harder at it on the snow and I am reaping the benefits with Jane the Chiro now!!

Jane the Chiro has suggested to me that after 400km of walking on the Camino in Spain mid 2010 and a month of skiing over Christmas, Crumble really has earned a holiday at the beach. I suspect that Jane is right!

We have had a run of sultry weather in the week or so we have been back, with a good bit of winter thrown in for good measure. The heater has been on more than once (and this in just a week!). The only good thing about the wintry weather is the clouds at sunset. Our view was very Turneresque last night. Pink to gold light on the undersides of heavy clouds and dull to gleaming water. It was yet another occasion that, having noticed the spectacle and been drawn from our seats at the dining table to the kitchen window to admire it, the sprint upstairs to grab a camera and try to capture it was just that little too late. Some nice pix but the optimal lighting had passed. Drat. That has happened to us so many times here – it is very often a beautiful spectacle out the kitchen window.

It is Wellington Anniversary Day tomorrow so a long weekend here. Yippee. Saw The King’s Speech this morning and may see something else tomorrow. Then it will be all systems go.

That’s all for now from

Dr Quake & Dr Crumble