Alan and Ann's homepage

December has been a very social month. There have been Christmas parties to attend, friends visiting us and even the dogs have had friends to stay. We had a Wise family weekend get-together at Noosa the last weekend in November. The cockies had 2 babies so now we have 6!!

We enjoyed another trip to Tassie and were grateful for the recently installed wood heater there.

We have had two trips to Tassie. The balustrade around the deck is now complete and is wonderful for keeping the dogs from escaping to chase quolls each night. Last trip we took over a wood heater which will make a difference to those first nights when the heating in the floor hasn't come to temperature. The levelling has started for the tennis court. We have to wait until Feb 2004 when it is dry again, to complete the court.

Ann had her 40th school reunion recently. She recognised most of the girls!

The dogs, horses and alpacas are all getting on well together and most of the olive trees are healthy. Maybe we will have a few olives next year.

Alan was speaking at the Breast Conference and we met up with various old friends including Gordon White who used to be my registrar, and his wife. Gordon is leaving Albury next year and is going to UK and Ireland to work for a few months next year.

The cockies have babies. We think 2. Wait for the photos.

Alan's plaster Alpacas arrived, sculptured by Georgie Lewis, our neigbour. They look great on the island. About the same time Pirra's health deteriorated quite quickly. As one of his great loves in life was to chase the Alpacas, we thought it appropriate to bury him on the island with the plaster Alpacas.

The real Alpacas had their haircuts and are feeling much better. They have some new company --2 thirty year old retired trotters. They all seem to get on OK although they don't mix much.

Alan is joining Bell Radiology in the new year as a sessional Radiologist 3 days per week. He will be using his paediatric expertise at Sunshine Hospital and will also work at Broadmeadows.

Alan has been busy gaining experience in MRI on his days off and he is now on the register of "Supervising MRI Radiologists".

He is also leaving Geelong Hospital to take a locum position at the Children's Hospital. What a relief. The travelling, weekends on and then more recently, week nights on call, were very difficult and tiring.

The olives have coped with minimum care. We are pleased we did not plan to plant this season, as the dam is still at its lowest ever summer levels. The dogs really enjoy this as they can run across to the island and play exciting games. They are very much little boy dogs.

In March as usual, we planted more olives and now have close to 500. We were happy to have our first olives this year. Maybe we will have enough to press in 2004. We are about to officially go "organic", although we have used no weedkillers etc since planting our first trees.We also went to an olive conference in Perth and met up with our old mate Liu Dan, Ann's MSc student in Hong Kong. She is now doing a PhD in Perth.We also saw Janet, Ann's mate from Uni science days and 3 of her very attractive daughters.

March was also a big occasion for the eldest dog, Pirra. It was his 10th birthday and 4 other Airedales came to help him celebrate with humans Sue and Bill.

The house at Parkville has finally been renovated. What a relief.

Ann left the Children's Hospital in May and starts at Box Hill Hospital in June.

Ann's neck is much improved and she is driving and working again. She is enjoying her new job at the Children's Hospital and it leaves plenty of time for the olives, as it is only 2 half days per week.

Livingstone has gone to play with his old mate Gough. He was found to have a tumour in his lung causing increasing difficulty with his breathing. On the day before he went to the vet he had a special feast of seafood risotto for breakfast, and chicken and sticky date pudding for tea. Pirra seemed to know that the end was close and kept him company most of the day.

Without Livingstone, energetic Lonnegan is focusing all his attention on Pirra with chasey and play fights. Pirra seems to develop a limp every second day. So finally we decided to get a new play mate for Lonnegan. His name is Tramp. He is too small to join in much yet but both dogs love him and he is growing quickly.

The olives are keeping us busy as usual. We have applied fertiliser to them all, changed their tree guards from the rigid sort to the soft plastic (cockies sit on the rigid guards and bite off the tips) and are doing our best to control the trees without using weedkiller.

We also managed to get to the fishing lodge in Tassie for a few days. The BBQ at London Lakes with some of the other Highland Waters residents as guests of London Lakes was the highlight of the weekend. The dogs agreed.