Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.

The ballot for the next family holiday. November 2019.

As a young lad – in the years before smart phones, the Internet and more than two television channels – I would spend hours pawing over atlases, encyclopaedias and novels from all over the globe. Sure, I might have been stuck in a dying, deindustrialising town (downgraded from a city, such was our fortune) on the north west of an island that served as the butt all the jokes of the rest of the state (which itself served as the punchline of the jokes of the rest of the country), at the arse end of the World; but that very same World was at my fingertips, with a little bit of help from a library card.

While I may have lamented never getting the chance of crossing those seas and seeing much of that World myself, I tried to keep my mind and imagination open. Therefore, now we are of means, and my kids are old enough to survive a bit of discomfort, I am keen to help them see as much of the planet while I have some kind of influence on how open their minds and hearts open.

I have been shocked to learn that – for all intents and purposes – this blog has been on hiatus for over six years. Quite a bit has happened in that time, not least the fact that we’ve been fortunate enough to visit thirteen different countries (that’s thirteen more countries than I had visited by the age of 26). Readers have missed our trips to Singapore (twice) and Malaysia. You’ve missed our galivanting around Japan. We’ve seen Rome, eaten oranges in La Spezia, stalked the Cinque Terre, battled smoking hordes in Firenze, braved snowstorms on Munich and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, waltzed in Vienna and bathed in Budapest.

You’ve missed us braving the cold and rain of London, dodging the seething throngs of Chinese and Russian tourists in matching tracksuits crowding the streets and alleyways of Prague. You’ve missed the joys of Hamburg, the grumps of Copenhagen and the happy young things of Malmö. You missed the fascination (and Henry’s horror) at the markets of Hong Kong. You missed us climbing mountains. So many mountains.

You missed Seoul. You missed Sokcho. You missed hours and hours and hours of us hanging around airports and train stations. Of course, we’re about to do it all again. Above, you’ll see our family holiday annual ballot. We run a democratic ship in terms of holiday decision-making, with my vote weighted the same as the kids (I even let the wife vote). We ran with an instant runoff voting system, with full preferential voting enforced. This is the second, and final round of voting. The first was an additional member variant, with a much larger ballot to narrow the choices.

The winner?

Egypt. A cradle of civilisation. Home of pyramids, mummies and gods with all manner of heads.

Which leads me to a question… Have YOU visited Egypt? Hints and tips? Must dos and must avoids?

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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