14 Days in Sunny October: Holiday photo report

Everybody who teaches, has taught or is related to a teacher knows that the academic year is like consecutive sprints: 11 weeks of high intensity... 2 weeks to recover... 10 weeks of VERY high intensity... 2 weeks to recover... 10 weeks of drama and sleepless nights... 2 weeks to recover... 10 more weeks of pleasure and pain... Christmas holidays!

Normally, the tendency is to flop at home in the breaks and veg for two weeks, but it's always nice to have something on so that it feels like a holiday. Here's my past 14 days...

Coffee and book reviews...

Central Coast sun and surf...

BBQ with the local comunity under the tree in our concrete backyard...

Road trip to Bendigo, VIC with the Morrises for Aimee & Josh's wedding

Put to work pre-wedding...

Scrubbed up for the wedding itself on the farm

Playing with Satie at home

Tons of reading...

Sun, music and lunch at Ashfield's Festival of Cultures

It's been a good 14 days. And appropriate thanksgiving should be made:

Great Spirit!Piler-up of the rocks into towering mountains:When you stamp on the stone

The dust rises and fills the land,Hardness of the precipice;Waters of the pool that turnInto misty rain when stirred.Vessels overflowing with oil!

Father of who sews the heavens like cloth:May you knit together that which is below.

Caller-forth of the branching trees:You bring forth the shoots

That they stand erect.

You have filled the land with mankind,

The dust rises on high, O Lord!

Wonderful One, you live

In the midst of the sheltering rocks,

You give rain to mankind:We pray to you; hear us, Lord!

Show mercy when we beseech thee, Lord.

You are on high with the spirits of the great.

You raise the grass-covered hills

Above the earth, and create the rivers.

Gracious One!

(From the Shosa people of Zimbabwe, in SPCK's Prayers Encircling the World)