Jamie received an interesting invitation on his Facebook page this morning, encouraging him to be part of an event organised by a couple who had sadly lost their little girl who was still-born a year ago today.
He was asked to acknowledge the loss of this baby by carrying out a random act of kindness in her memory. He has no idea where the invitation originated but it has been passed on by hordes of other Facebook users and ultimately reached Jamie via a friend in Launceston. Apparently, 25901 people have accepted the invitation to take part in the event, 5186 may attend, and 115494 people are yet to respond.
It’s wonderful that people today, struggling to cope with the loss of a child are able to reach out, through the internet, to tens of thousands of others who can express their sympathy in a tangible way. Forty years ago, you had to look for support from your immediate family and close friends; even the family doctor just expected you to get on with your life, and didn’t even offer counselling unless it was demanded. Times have certainly changed, and for the better.
If you want to check out the event, the link is: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=238436836167242
We’re having a break from builders today, although there is still work being done in clearing the block. Damo, a friend of Marilyn’s from Grammar, has brought his whipper-snipper and ride-on mower to have a go at the thick grass at the front of the block. He’s fast and is making a real impression.
We won’t see Les again until Saturday when his brother will deliver the windows for the verandah enclosure and we can get stuck in to finishing off the job.
We’ve been in the new house for 7 weeks and Marilyn is starting to murmur about how nice it might be to go on a cruise. We’re certainly not the type of people who can be content to sit in our little cottage and watch the days pass by. We need to have a goal to look forward to. There’s talk of a trip to Borneo next year in April/May and we’re certainly keen on that but something between now and then might be nice.
There are some attractive Christmas cruises: the Diamond Princess sails from Sydney on December 16th, the Volendam leaves on the 19th, and the Celebrity Century on the 24th. But we’ve sailed to New Zealand before. There are a couple of possibilities to the South Pacific islands, on the Zaandam and the Rhapsody of the Seas but is summer the best time to be in the South Pacific? I have to say my preference is for an Asian cruise in mid-November. We would fly to Beijing to join the Diamond Princess on November 11th, and sail to ports in Korea, Japan, China and Vietnam before arriving in Singapore. The cruise is 16 days, a good duration, with some very interesting ports and not overly expensive. We’ve sailed on the Diamond Princess before and it suits us well. The only drawback is that it is very soon after the Craft Fair which doesn’t finish until November 7th but we could have our bags packed and be ready to go. Our sister-in-law, Janet, will be staying with us until November 10th but we could fly back to Sydney with her to get our connection to Beijing.
Oh, well! It’s easy to dream
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