Dances with Words

Our beloved Gem, the “custard car” as one of our friends calls it, was involved in an incident yesterday.

Elicia only crashed it in the loosest sense – she was parked at a colleague’s practice and was indoors when a truck ran into the back of it.

We rang our insurance company but apparently they only get involved if the other person doesn’t have insurance. When we rang the trucking company they said everything is under control. I just hope it can be fixed well, we love that car… and it will have to be fixed by the start of June when we go Adventuring.

We got together with our solicitor yesterday, gave him all the paperwork, he’s sending it all off today I think. Settlement date is 14th May.

We could have made it a bit earlier, but it’s a bit more complicated (and more expensive) than a normal property transaction so it takes a bit longer. Originally we were hoping to be in by Easter, but no way that’s going to happen now… we’ve decided we’ll have to stay at home for the Easter break, after lashing out last weekend and having all these extra expenses for the unit.

… is what bwings us togevah.

Leigh and Naomi were married in the gardens of the Lyrebird Falls reception centre, Kallista, at 4:30pm Saturday. The reception followed at the the same place. A picturesque location for a beautiful wedding, congratulations guys.

I was privelaged to do two readings during the ceremony, I stood behind the couple as they held hands in front of me reading, it was very cool, I felt like a priest. The readings weren’t from the Bible though – they were just meaningful poems that they found somewhere. They were married by a celebrant and, incidentally, it’s the first non-church wedding I’ve ever been to. It wasn’t that different really – a bit shorter due to the lack of singing – and at the end the celebrant said “by the power invested in me by the L…” and I thought he was going to say “Lord” but he just stopped at “Law”.

Then Elicia and I spent Saturday and Sunday night at a fancy (and rather expensive) bed and breakfast in Olinda, very nice, very romantic. We had the King Arthur suite, complete with King-size bed, four-poster spa and a replica of Excalibur embedded in the stone wall. It wouldn’t come out, I tried. Or maybe I’m just not the Future King of All England.

I had the deepest sleep I’ve had for a long time last night. And I awoke this morning relaxed and with a feeling of content (somewhat foreign lately). Life is good!

Our friends Leigh and Naomi are getting married tonight. I’m not in the wedding party, but I’m doing a reading at the ceremony so I still got invited to the “night before get together” last night. It was just Leigh’s friends – Naomi was somewhere else with her bridesmaids.

We had fun – got a bit carried away trying to make a hot air balloon out of a garbage bag, wire and kerosene. It flew about 20m before crashing spectacularly. Is that further than the Wright brothers’ first flight? Sometimes when we get together we seem so typically like young male adolescents (which we’re not, we’re all mid-twenties) but it’s just so much fun that no-one really cares. And it’s not alcohol-induced silliness – we didn’t drink very much at all last night, everyone wanting to be good for the Big Day today. It’s more like we were too self-conscious and missed out on being that silly when we were adolescents, now that we’re more natural with who we are, individually and as a group, we can behave however we want.

There’s still a lot to do today. Elicia’s at work all day, so I’ve got to find out how we send the contract of sale off – I think we just sign it and let our solicitor do the rest. When I tried ringing yesterday, though, he wasn’t answering the phone. I thought I’d also get him to have a look at the loan contract from the bank, just to make sure it’s all okay before we sign our lives away. And because Elicia’s got the car I have to foot it to all the different places – lucky Ocean Grove isn’t that big!

I thought I’d give us all a treat and include some photos we took when we were in Mt Hotham in February. However, I can’t figure out how to get them to appear here – so you’ll just have to click the links.

*edit* Dave helped me out, it should work now, fingers crossed!

This is the main village of Mt Hotham resort. Our apartments are visible in the centre at the back, the dusty red building.

This is what our unit looks like on the outside. It’s on the second floor. There are about 120 apartments in the complex, I think – very cosmopolitan!

The back wall of the pub is one very large window. This is the view at sunset on the day we were up there. The scenery is spectacular, and is one of the main reasons we fell in love with the place.

Our loan was approved this afternoon!!*

Fantastic news. Mum and Dad are kicking in some money towards a larger deposit, but the loan is in our names, which is a very low-fuss solution compared to some of the others that had been offered.

So the adventure definitely on, which is good, otherwise I would have had to change the name of this weblog to something else. "James and Elicia settle down and live a normal life" perhaps. "James and Elicia’s boring rut" might have been more accurate. Thank goodness that’s not necessary any more!

* I don’t use double exclamation marks very often, so when I do you know it means I’m Very Excited.

I went to a friends Trav and Karly’s place last night for dinner, stayed the night and went out with Trav on his boat this morning. It’s not really his boat, he is a marine biologist and tour operator at Sea-All, a charter boat that takes groups out into Port Phillip Bay to snorkel with seals and (if you’re lucky) dolphins.

The conditions were perfect. It’s Autumn now, but this week it seems that summer is having its last little fling – today is 25 deg c, bright blue sky, water flat and clear. We took off from Queenscliff about 10am with a group of year 10 Outdoor Ed students. Sea-All provides full-length wetsuits, snorkels, snacks, drinks, sunscreen and educational material to the teachers – they are very popular this time of year with school groups, over summer they are chockablock with tourists.

And I understand why. The boat took us out into the Bay to Pope’s eye, apparently one of the world’s smallest marine sanctuaries, and the snorkelling there is fantastic – we saw many coloured sponges and algae, sea-stars, jellies (unusual this far south) and fish galore. Then we took off to Chinaman’s Hat, where a colony of Australian fur seals live. The young ones play and dance in the water, and we snorkelled right with them (although not close enough for them to bite, which Trav said happens occasionally).

Then we go looking for dolphins. The boat just drives around until it finds some, or hears on the grapevine where a pod is swimming. They run ropes out the back of the boat that people cling to, then they run into what they hope is the path of the pod, and if you’re lucky the dolphins swim right through the group of people. We weren’t quite so lucky today. We did find dolphins, but it was a small pod and they didn’t want to play, diving deep whenever they came near us.

Awesome fun, educational, and the whole atmosphere is alluring, the "call of the sea" and that sort of thing. Hats off to Trav and the rest of the crew at Sea-All. I’m definitely going to go out with him again, next time I’ll take Elicia along (she comes back tonight!)

PS I just rang the Bendigo guy, we should know tomorrow whether we can get a loan through them or not *praying hard*. He said the chances were "um… well… I guess, um… I’d say Very Good!", which I decided to take as encouraging.

It’s kind of wierd, doing a weblog. I had the first email from someone who’s read it who I know in real life: positive feedback, but it’s still a bit strange to think that they know what’s going on in my life (some of it, anyway) without me telling them personally.

And it’s getting into my mind, like something happens and I think "ooh, that would make a nice little anecdote for the wiblog!" Is that kind of removal from the moment really a healthy thing? I’ve always been a bit like that though – introspective, but in a 3rd-person kind of way. "External introspection."

Speaking of introspection: I spent a chunk of quality time praying yesterday. I have been very caught up in aiming for this Mt Hotham experience, and I really felt at the end of my own abilities. I felt I had to honestly and totally put God back onto the top of my priority list and remember that it is Him that I live for. Learning about God’s ways is the point to life, I reckon. And as long as I keep finding joy in that, I’ll be right no matter the circumstances.

Not many as far as the Adventure goes: I rang the actual seller of our unit this morning, turns out he is not in a huge rush of any kind, which is great! Made me feel much less stressed. We’re seeing another bank guy with my parents on Wednesday, this is the local Bendigo Bank that we currently bank with, and who were very apologetic about knocking back our loan originally and might do us a good deal now that we’ve got my parents involved.

However, in other news: Elicia has gone to Melbourne to do a massage course (advanced NST) until Wednesday this week, leaving me at home alone. This will be the longest we’ve ever been apart. She left yesterday morning and last night I couldn’t sleep very well… I miss her. Pathetic, I know, but when she’s not here the house is so quiet and dull.

I finished The Magus though – what a book! I found it totally compelling, it gains your trust and then rips it out from under you, not a pleasant experience but intrigueing, powerful and emotional. Don’t read it if you like happy stories, or even sad stories where everything makes sense. Read it if you want to think "What? He’s really – oh!", not once but after every few chapters!

Mum and Dad’s loan got application got knocked back rather swiftly, due this time to the fact that their house is classed as "rural" (they have a nice 5 acre block with a big vege garden and some natural bushland up the back) Apparently "rural" is another one of those keywords that banks don’t like, similar to "leasehold".

They came around after dinner last night and we drank a bottle of wine and ate a block of dark chocolate with macadamia nuts, talked a lot and then felt a much better about everything. They are rather taken aback by how much trouble it is all being – which I totally understand – but we’re not giving up just yet.

They’re going to call the bank they are currently with and I’m going to call Bendigo, who we’re currently with, and we’ll see if we can’t come up with something. The other option is a "low-doc" loan that Loan Guy offered as a second option, but the interest rate is higher so Mum and Dad were understandable hesitant about that. Elicia and I would pay for any extra costs they incurred, of course, but if it works out too expensive then it’s just silly.

Seems like it might also be a good time to look at other options: renting for the season is too expensive, but some of the lodges hire live-in managers for the season, which would mean we’d actaully get paid to stay there, nice! Hard jobs to get though, for good reason.