2009 – A Review
// January 1st, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Home
Every year I like to do a quick post to review the year that was, my last review post was filled with optimism, but 2009 panned out to be a more difficult year than 2008, but has been punctuated with some awesomeness.
There were a few tragedies in 2009, the saddest being the death of my beloved grandfather in early July. After he died I dashed back to NZ to spend some time with my Granny in Taumarunui. On the same day grandpa died, Mark and I also found out a dear friend was not well; but thankfully he has recovered. As kids, my brothers and I were very close with our grandparents, spending endless summers on their yacht Lemara moored at Richards Bay in Northern Natal, South Africa. The two photos above are from Gran and Grandpa’s 60th wedding anniversary, and our Civil Union. He was so proud of us on that day.
In August Mischa lost her eye. Mark got home from work and in some excitement she has either chased our cat Chad, who has freaked and scratched her, or has run past a rosebush scratching her eye on a thorn. The saddest part is that at this stage the eye was salvageable, and her vision was not affected. We rushed her to the vet immediately, and followed up the next day with another visit, and she should have been given a buster collar to prevent further damage, but was not. Mischa ended up further damaging her eye with her paw resulting in it having to be removed. I ended up taking the vet to the small claims court and we thankfully settled out of court. Mischa has recovered well, and having only one eye does not seem to bother her much.
In July on the way to work Mark said he was not feeling well, and I pressured him to go to hospital to have it checked out. The diagnosis was a blood clot, and he ended up being in hospital for a few days. Mark is doing well now, but this incident really highlighted how isolated we were in Perth, and not having any family close during times like that is difficult. This was a catalyst for us moving back to Brisbane later in the year.
The last piece of bad news for this review is about Chad, our beloved ginger cat who was run over shortly after we moved back to Brisbane. Chad was a lovely cat, and he is sadly missed.
Looking back through my blog posts and facebook updates of the past year it has not all been bad, and a major highlight of the year was moving back to Brisbane. Being back is great, and it’s like we never left. We have settled back into our group of awesome friends, and whilst moving back was stressful with the logistics of getting ourselves, our car, pets and ourselves back. It all happened quite easily, I guess we are getting good at moving big distances. We also landed a great house, in a great part of town, and are looking forward to the next few years in Brisbane.
I have seen some great shows this year, and have taken some great photos from Samesame.com.au. The best concert I saw was Basement Jaxx at the Future Music Festival. Parklife, Good Vibrations, the V Festival and West Coast Blues and Roots were fun, but the best festival of the year was Southbound at Bunburry. Some festival highlights were watching Empire of the Sun [photo above] from backstage, and meeting Sam Sparro briefly. Other great shows through the year included The Freemasons with the camp Katherine Ellis, who was lovely when I met her after the show. Sia, Little Birdy and The Presets were also awesome shows. Rozalla was terrible and she lip-synched her way through all her songs. Shortly after we moved back we saw the Trocks here in Brisbane, an all-male ballet troupe who dance en-pointe, and were very camp.
In 2009 I have had great fun with my photography. I photographed all the festivals above, and also a couple fashion events; StyleAID and the Perth Fashion Festival.
2009 was also the year of food, which is showing on our waistlines. Mark and I published our little recipe project titled Cooking with Tools, and we are already working on edition 2, which will be out in May this year.
In April my little brother Greg and his now Fiancé Natasha spent a few weeks with us is Perth en-route to London where they now live. It was great having family around and catching up, doing a Wine tour of the Swan Valley and Greg came along to the West Coast Blues and Roots Festiv
2009 is also the year I have decided to volunteer some of my time back into the gay community. After reading this article about refugees who face persecution in countries where they could be killed because of their sexual orientation, I got in touch with ORAM, an organisation helping them escape the persecution they face, and resettle them as refugees in safer countries; and have offered to redevelop their website. The new version of their site is looking good and is due for a launch in mid-January.
Here’s to a wonderful 2010.
