Hmm, a second post!!

Well, it's happened ... a second post on here ...

Just received a Christmas (and birthday?) present for my youngest, from one of his godfathers ... I Want My Mummy is a hit, as we expected, but I'm not sure either my wife or I will be able to endure the Vegietales CD - the singing is even more out of tune than mine!!! At least I tend to hang around in the right key in most songs ...

Also, post-Christmas sales are low-stress over here ... no big Boxing Day rush, just heaps of stuff at 50% (or even 25%!) of full price ... this sadly doesn't include the nice calligraphy pen Aislinn wanted to buy, but then she was using her own money.

The badly-abused calligraphy pen I loaned to the class still serves me, just, but I also bought a new one for the children to use. They've learned to take care capping the pen now, as almost all of them were horrified at the sight of one half of the nib pointing at right-angles to its partner. The others were very quiet, and would not be game to risk such damage again. A couple of surprising adherents to calligraphy in the class, working hard to master Gothic Black Letter with a 1.5mm nib. Should get something bigger for them as well, so they can do real illuminated letters instead of just 'normal' sized letters.

Now that I have regained possession of my own (slightly-warped) calligraphy pen, we'll see if the poetry inspiration resumes. I found that I wanted to write with my new pen so much that I got back into poetry, after a bit of a hiatus ... may even post some up here in my next update, you never know!

Anyhow, off now ... kids are having dessert, so should chase them to bed soon ... another day at school tomorrow!

Goodbye 2009 ... Hello Blog!

After 17 months of living in a foreign country, I've finally thought to create a blog of it ... this means that the initial joys and struggles will not appear, but that's okay for me - I've managed to vent and celebrate in other areas, and am no less sane than I was in Sydney.

Still, since I'm planning to be here for the long haul, there are of course still many "challenges" to be met - including, of course, mastery of two or three languages. I think I have a decent grasp of English, High German is 'developing', and Swiss-German (at least the Zürich dialect!) is becoming more understandable ... and I know more than a dozen words in French! Have probably met the recently-suggested "minimum" of 1000 words in German, too ...

I'll pop stuff up here irregularly, and even less regularly will link to the blog. If you're really keen on following it, use one of the tools for being notified on your own ...

Oh, and as you may notice, I will be moderating comments as a rule - so don't worry if you have a major typo, I'll fix it for you before letting your comment surface! ;}

So, with no further ado, I'll let you settle back and wait for the 201st decade to bring further posts ...
Who knows? Maybe this will not only be the first, but the last!