Stephen and Lucy
Felicity
Bridesmaids
Our biggest adventure was a serious visit to Canada occasioned by an invitation to a meeting in Montreal. Previously we had not moved far from the immediate environs of Vancouver. The original idea was quite adventurous. It was to involve also a visit to the UK for the last Dundee meeting. This didn't work out because we could not get a round the world ticket to meet our requirements. What permitted sensible travel arrangements in Canada could not even get us wait listed from Singapore to London. Otherwise our internal Canadian travel would have to be via Dallas! We decided that Qantas and Air Canada must be related.
The main excitement in the first half of the year was the marriage of Stephen and Lucy. The wedding was held in Gloria's Church, the Celebrant was John Eddy S.J., Grandaughters provided the bridesmaids, and the reception as held at home. It could hardly have been a more family event. Lucy's mother was able to spend several months here from Brazil. But before that we had our fiftieth Wedding Anniversary. Gloria wanted it to be low key, and we even arranged to be in Melbourne for Millie's birthday (I suppose there is a sensible explanation for that!). However, most of the family managed to be there, and Millie's party in a Victoria Street Chinese Restaurant expanded to take the other matter into account. A good time was had by all - despite the acoustics. We went to Melbourne in October to hear David's orchestra perform in the Spiegeltent at the Melbourne Festival. Our route took us via Hamilton to visit Nan and Miles and also to collect Grampians campsite information for the Land Rover Club cd compilation "Camp Ground Corner". David seems to be growing a dedicated following of serious fans who earlier had well oversubscribed an ABC Sunday afternoon concert. Their program is presenting a growing number of new works, but we are still waiting for a new cd to be ready before Christmas when it is needed for presents. This time it is promised for July 2008 but that is not the same thing. One site we collected is Anderson's Mill which will feature as a title on David's new cd. The mill site is not far from Ballarat and is recommended as a picnic spot. Therese is working hard moulding her new mansion to her requirements. Millie is very pleased with her private flat, and the tennis court is resurfaced. Martin and Penny have just about completed the chalet/office block at the bottom of the garden. Fiona's father Jim lost his battle with mesathelioma in mid November. Gloria went to Melbourne to mind Luke ("come on Granny") for Jim's last few days. Philip has returned to Telstra. Millie and Giselle both finished High School this year with spectacularly good results. However, planning for University has been taking second place to School-end formals. We have managed to avoid serious health problems. Perhaps the year just went too quickly. It has decided to rain again at last and the garden has been thriving as a result despite greater than usual frost damage last winter. Also, we wish the possums would lay off our magnolia. 4WD has taken something of a back seat this year, although I did lead a very successful trip to the temperate rain forest of the Errinundra NP in the East Gippsland high country. The display of waratahs was just amazing. Gloria managed to avoid any camping having missed the Errinundra trip by having to look after Luke. We have been thinking of getting something smaller than the Nissan and did a fair bit of looking this year. The result is we decided that nothing met our requirements better, and that concerns over the reported generic troubles with the motor could best be settled by replacing it before anything untoward happened. This we have now done. Currently it is in running-in mode. Christmas is going to be celebrated quietly in Canberra. Stephen will be here. Lucy and Felicity have been visiting Brasil and return very early in the New Year. The rest of the family will be living it up in Melbourne.
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Stephen and Lucy |
Felicity |
Bridesmaids |
Canada: The travel agent booked us on China Air which gave us the advantage of an overnight stop in Taipei. We had the advantage of a strong tail wind into Vancouver which had us on the ground 20 minutes early. That was about the time it took to find someone to put out the bridge so we could disembark. We were introduced to what appear to be characteristics of air travel in Canada: the departure was not exactly punctual, and the PA system did not work. Maybe it was done to made us feel at home. The meeting coupled statistics and boundary value problems, surprisingly a relatively recent development; but good friends Bart Childs from Aggieland and Johannes Schloeder from Heidelberg were much in evidence. The meeting seemed to go well. I was pleased with a new large sample rate of convergence result for what I call the Bock iteration (for an explicit constrained formulation of the estimation problem). As expected, the French influence in Montreal is undeniable. Our Hotel could have been in Paris except the rooms were larger. It did have an excellent restaurant. A major disappointment was the price of wine. The Conference dinner doubled as Jim Ramsay's retirement celebration and should have been better. The restaurant in the "Old Town" was pretentious, expensive, and not very good. But it did have a good, relatively inexpensive, Chilean red as a house wine by the bottle.
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Bart, Johannes, and friends |
Fred and Nancy in Arcadia |
Stengerville |
The second stage of the journey saw us head off to Wolfville, Nova Scotia to catch up with old friends Fred and Nancy Chipman. The Cajuns (a corruption of Arcadia) come from this part of the world and we now understand the term. Also, why many tried to return. In July it is just beautiful! Fred has retired from Arcadia University, a small School with many successul (and rich) alumni. It was founded in 1838. He has been followed in the Mathematics Department by son Hugh who took a Canadian Research Professorship in data mining home. I couldn't resist a professional visit. Fred and Nancy are now seriously into the business of making Wolfville even more beautiful but took some time off to make sure we appreciated both the natural and cultural advantages of Nova Scotia. A visit to savour. I should mention strawberries with real flavour and splendid cherries. The lobsters are famous.
The next leg involved a flight to Calgary to pick up a rental car to be driven through the Rockies to Vancouver. We arrived in Calgary about 10 pm (1 am our time) and joined the end of a long queue at the rental counter. Still at the end of the queue, we eventually got to pick up our car around midnight. We suspect we got what was left. It turned out to be a Mustang rather than a Corolla. We found our Hotel with a little trouble. Although the address was a minor road all the action was facing a parallel major one as we discovered eventually. The Hotel was hosting a Hells Angels convention. We found the security staff very helpful with matters like parking the car. It seemed everyone was very interested in the car at all our stops. Next day we headed for Jasper via Banf and Lake Louise using Highway 93. The value of the Mustang was proved in taking passing opportunities when overtaking mobile mansions. We believe we did make the top of a mountain next day, assisted part way by a tramway. Any doubt was the result of mist, rain, and a double rainbow. The conditions proved ideal for photographing alpine herbs. The following day we headed headed towards Vancouver, getting as far as a pretty little town called Hope.
The problems to be solved the next day involved getting rid of the rental car in Vancouver and then catching a Ferry from Hoseshoe Bay to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Actually, we had not anticipated problems because we had done this kind of thing several times before. However, Vancouver has discovered traffic. We did catch the intended Ferry just - we even had a gangway put back for us - but several years ago we probably would have had an hour to spare. The Stengers picked us up in Nanaimo and ferried us off to their amazing mansion perched on the side of a cliff looking out over the water back to Vancouver. If anything, it even outdid their former house in Salt Lake City. Fine weather, tall trees, water vistas, lots of seafood, and good company. It is hard to ask for much more! We returned to Vancouver with Frank who was off to visit Poland while we had a final few days in Vancouver visiting Uri Ascher. We stayed at the Point Grey guest house convenient to UBC once again (recommended), and we discovered a really excellent restaurant in easy walking distance. But there have been lots of changes to downtown and not all seemed to count as improvements. It was the end of our strenuous four weeks of travel, and we were glad to be home.
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Anderson's Mill |
Millie dressed to kill |
Errinundra waratahs |
Year's end: It continues to rain! Everyone is happy except those who have to mow the grass (to misquote Tolkien). Giselle's final HSC score is 97.3. She was worried about being able to make one of several possible University courses that interested her. Now she has to make a decision because she qualifies easily for them all. Millie's score is 99.1. Therese said she was worried that she seemed to slacken off in the last semester. She topped the ANU Maths College which gives her credit for first year ANU mathematics subjects. Their grandparents are very impressed.
However, there is sadness also. The year's end brought other deaths beside Jim King's. First dear friends and colleagues Gene Golub and Ron Mitchell. Gene had shared valuable time with us last year at CTAC, and we had hoped to meet up again at the Dundee meeting. This had been the first Dundee meeting Ron had felt unable to attend. Then a good friend in the LRC died suddenly. In his early 70's, he had been playing pennant squash only a few days earlier. Saddest was Tony's wife Marjory's daughter. She died in her sleep aged 39 leaving a young family. We will celebrate the contributions of Gene and Ron with a meeting at the end of February. It will be part of a multi hosted tribute across the globe.
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| Sunrise, Stengerville. |