Sunday, Aug 12, 2012

Football

It is coming to the end of the football season here in Australia.

This is a picture of Nick playing for his current side (Blue Mountains FC under 18 Division 1 side).

Nick is now playing what are almost adult competitions: 45 minutes per half, no concessions for young people, etc.  One of his side was suspended 4 matches for swearing.

Mind you, Nick playing as an adult is reasonable on size grounds – he is now 187cm tall!  We measured him this morning.

They lost today’s match 1-0, despite being the better side for 3/4 of the match.

Sunday, Aug 05, 2012

No pictures this time.  Just news.

We’ve been relatively quiet here in Aus., recently.  Andrew and Nick are in the middle of term-time, I am continuing to dislike the politics and hypocrisy associated with being Head of Department, Sue continues to battle with the traffic going from our semi-rural home to the centre of Sydney, to work.

Winter in the lower Blue Mountains is pleasant, though.  Temperatures never reach zero during the day: there are occasional frosts, sometimes even “heavy” frosts, but it rapidly warms up once the sun has risen.  Oddly enough, winter is a growing season for native plants – that way the growing season avoids the searing dehydrating weather of summer, I suspect.

Andrew continues to play hockey, Nick continues to play hockey and football (soccer).  This will probably be Nick’s last year at the local club, though.  Next year is his “crunch” year at school (Year 12) and he will choose hockey over soccer as the one sport he plans to continue, at least in winter.  Cricket MUST continue, of course.

The boys real favourite is skiing, of course.  Andrew goes off to his school skiing camp tomorrow – in the Snowy Mountains.  They do a nominal day in Canberra on the way (to ensure that the trip has “educational” status, I think), and then spend a couple of days skiing.  We are also in the process of booking our yearly skiing holiday at the moment.  Niseko again, with a stopover in Hong Kong, we plan at present.

I (David) am off to Europe next weekend.  The European Cardiac Society is in Munich this year, and I will spend a week or so in England prior to the ECS meeting.