A New Chapter Christmas 2025

Dear friends and family,

Yes, it is still the season of Christmas! May you and the whole world know joy and the blossoming of peace now and always.

A new chapter has opened in our lives. This has so preoccupied us these last months that our communication with you in particular, and the world in general, has suffered a bit. Be assured you remain firmly in our thoughts and prayers. We hope this photographic journey helps to compensate for our silence. Let’s begin in Singapore:

28 July: Another winter break in Changi Village. From our hotel balcony, we spy the Spirit of Tasmania glide by. What a surprise! An adventurous new northward journey in its life?
16 August: Back home, Geoff shares with me (Chris) the seed of an idea. How about we move from Canberra to Brisbane? Specifically how about we move to the same retirement village where my sister Alison and brother-in-law Graham moved to recently? This idea is unexpected (to each of us) as the appearance of the Spirit of Tasmania in Singapore. It came from air as thin as the middle of this doughnut. But it struck a chord, deep down. The Spirit moved.

19 August: Initial enquiries took the wind out of our sails. There are no units at the retirement village available that would suit us. We would need to be patient for months, if not years. Nevertheless, we decided to take preliminary steps. We spoke to a Canberra real estate agent.   27 August: Amazing! We are offered a unit at the same Forest Grove Retirement Village. Someone has pulled out of a contract. It suits us down to the ground. We jump.

29 August: Geoff draws up an inital floor plan, with furniture to-scale.
12 September: Our beloved Grayson Street house is on the market. We hand the keys to the real estate agent and fly to South-east Queensland for a few weeks to see extended family and to reconnoitre.
11 October: SOLD! We feel bedraggled and amazed.
12 October: Serious culling begins. Things moving from the house to a trailer in the garage, and to a skip in the driveway. Our friend Maggie the Magpie moves right on in to supervise.
19 October: Geoff leads the service for the Ainslie Church of Christ for the last time—based on The Pilgrim’s Progress. Echoes of our progress?

5 November to 17 November: The nomadic phase. We move in with our very accommodating neighbour Rhyl. She knows what it feels like, having moved from Brisbane to Canberra ten years ago to be close to her family.

6 November: The removalists arrive. They pack, and leave the next day with all our worldly possessions.
9 November: We both sing in the Good Faith Choir concert. Our much-loved choir treat us to a farewell a few days later, one of many wonderful farewells that grace our lives from our neighbours, church friends, and clubs. (The first was back on 25 October.)

15 November: The Holy Cross Hackett fete. We both work on the cake stall in memory of recently departed Betty, who was the organiser for decades. More friends drop by during the day to say goodbye.

17 November: We wave goodbye to our Mini.

18 November: We fly to Brisbane, in a state of excitement entangled with nervous exhaustion, to the home of Alison and Graham. They put us up, and put up with us, in ways only family can do.

20 November: The removalist delivers Our Stuff and we bury our heads in boxes.
23 November: We sleep in the bed of our new home, Y25, for the first time. We like it here. Very much. We meet our friendly neighbours and also the plentiful dragons. This one peering in at our very high bathroom window was a great surprise.
New Year’s Eve: We unpacked the last box into our new home a few days ago. Meanwhile this Australian Brush-turkey arranged its mound nearby. Our archive boxes are likewise in storage —out of sight but not out of mind.
The Mini got here too. It has a new identity and so do we. It reminds us that we have now berthed in Queensland, our new chapter.  

Our new address is: Y25/356 Blunder Road, Durack Qld 4077. We have a guest bedroom. Our thanks go to all of you who, one way or another, have helped and encouraged us us to open this new chapter. With our love, Chris and Geoff