Letter to Marlis Sep-Oct 2023

Springfield Lakes, 10 November

Hi Marlis,

Another two months have flown by with lots of interesting things that happened. They never seem like major things until I start writing them down. When I then read back these letters I always think that we’ve got a lot going on after all! Anyway, I hope you are doing well as always and that you got yourself a cup of tea and a warm spot to sit, because here we go! 

I apologise for there not being any photos in this letter, my printer is not that good for printing photos, but I promise to make it up next time!

Visiting Sydney

For my birthday I got gifted an all-expenses-paid 2-day trip to Sydney from Yumi’s business, Purpose at Work, to attend a 1-day conference about Governance in Aged Care on my birthday. Some might think that’s boring, but it keeps my knowledge current for the work that I sometimes do, helping Purpose at Work deliver a workshop to business leaders and Board Members about human rights, quality and safeguarding. The conference was good, I learned some new things, heard some familiar things and got to support Yumi’s business partner Alan who also spoke there, 3 days before getting his second hip-replacement! And then you called me to wish me a happy birthday, so that made the day that much better still.

The Sunday before the conference I got to spend time with my change management friend Myah, who has a wonderful mind and an unusual way of thinking about the world that I really like. We had lunch talked for about 3 hours about the world, the change management community and a book that we plan to write about the ethics of change management in this modern age. I would write a book about pet rocks and how they collect dust if it means working with her, I think I’ll learn a lot from writing a more ‘serious’ book than Bad Change, although that was serious in its own way too. After meeting with Myah I met with two other change friends for drinks, also in Darling Harbour and then I went back to my hotel to work on a brochure about the impact of the Disability Royal Commission for Purpose at Work and that was the Sunday done.

After the conference on Monday, I had planned to have some time for sightseeing, before going to the airport. It was a glorious sunny day with perfect weather, so I walked from Darling Harbour to Circular Quay to look at the Bridge and Opera House and I am happy to report they are both still there! 😊 Even though I get lost all the time and I am so bad at navigating, I know that part of Sydney pretty well by now so I had no issue finding my way, look at all the tourist and laugh at their weird antics. The area really has changed over time with more building shooting up and complete blocks being demolished, but I mostly just looked at the people and the bay. I also treated myself to a plant-based burger from Hungry Jacks and it was pretty good. So good in fact that I got flocked by a swarm of seagulls trying to steal it! I didn’t exactly run for it, but had to walk about 100m before I could eat in peace, which must have looked hilarious to everyone else. After that it was time to go home to Yumi and Dash to celebrate the last part of my birthday and our 26-years together anniversary. I call that a pretty good day!

Diving

We were fortunate to go diving again mid-September, once again at the Gold Coast, but more out to sea this time. The first was a spot called ”The Miracles”, which is an artificial reef just 15 minutes off the coast, built to attract underwater life. They are essentially two steel pyramids connected at their base held to the seafloor by big chains and anchors. They are full of holes so the fish can go inside and do whatever it is that fish do in their spare time😊. By the looks of it, it’s working as planned, there was a lot of coral growth and marine life around. Visibility wasn’t very good, but we still had a good time for most of it. 

The next one was a timber frame wreck from 1884 which was really just a set of beams and planks, but still fun to look at. There were a few very big eagle rays and cow-tailed rays hanging about, and it’s always nice to hang out with them a bit. This was a new dive operator for us and they were as friendly as ever. They are in a good spot for us to drive to and despite me accidentally stealing the dive guide’s dive boots (they were nearly identical to mine!!) they were happy to have us back for more dives. I always want to go for more dives, but Yumi sometimes gets headaches and our weekends are quite busy with normal life stuff and the greyhounds so diving doesn’t happen as often as I’d like.

My friend Peter and I are nearly done with the follow up to the Bad Change Book, called Bad Sponsor. In business-land a sponsor is an executive leader who takes responsibility for change happening as planned. Fortunately for us, there are lots of situations where that doesn’t quite happen as hoped and some sponsors are really bad at their jobs! We get to make fun of them in the comic on one page and then offer 5 tips  on the other page for each of the 15 scenarios so they can do better. It will be much shorter and thinner than Bad Change, but hopefully it will give change professionals some useful tools and tips to work with their sponsors in more meaningful ways. We’re also creating a 3-minute cartoon video and a poster for the fun of it.

Peter and I have plans for a training course and even more tools, but those would be paid for, while everything we’ve been doing so far has always been for charity. Building training materials is very time intensive and might also cost quite a bit of money to do it right, but it will be a fun project for 2024 to work on and it might even generate some passive income. Once we’ve set it all up, it should really take care of itself for most of it. Maybe one day we’ll really have our own business called Bad Change Company but for now it’s just fun to create things people love to use at work.

Work work work!

My free time after resigning from UQ did not last very long. After less than 2 weeks I picked up some contractwork to review training course materials and write a business case at a very attractive day rate. It was for our friend Helen, who I’ve known for something like 7 years now and who moved to Queensland just a bit before Yumi and I did. She’s doing this big project for the UN World Food Program and needed some help getting the materials up to her very high standards. I really enjoyed the work and working with one of the people I have a lot of professional and personal respect for is a very nice bonus!

And then when I thought I was done for the year and could just read and play video games, along came a contact of mine from Griffith University asking if I’d be interested to come over for 8 weeks to help them out with creating a Change Management Framework for the whole university. These jobs don’t come along often and I immediately jumped at it. I started two weeks ago and have it ready in draft, but there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done. I have so many ideas and see all the potential, but I have to stick to my brief so that they get at least the Framework and supporting materials out of it, but I plan to slide in some extra value where I can. 

I want them to really like my work and I want to prove to myself that I can do this too. I know I can, but doing it and getting paid for it, shows everyone else that I can do it too. It’s really cool that everyone I talk to wants this to happen, they are sick and tired of dealing with different tools, approaches and templates and I think I’ve got the solution for them. I will probably not be around to see it all settle into place, but the managers I work for know what they are doing, they just don’t have the time to do it themselves.  

And while all this is happening, I’ve been talking on and off for two months with a big national retailer called Super Retail Group. They are the business behind Rebel, Supercheap Auto, BCF and MacPac and very big in Australia. They will make me an offer next week and I hope it’s in the neighbourhood of what I asked for ($200,000). This is of course a whole lot of money, but looking at what my fellow change people are making, not so outrageous as it sounds. It would also mean I become an employee again, but I look forward to working as part of a team of change managers and not always being the one expert to help everyone else. If it all goes as planned, I’ll have a lot more to say about that next time.

However it turns out, I really feel proud of backing myself to go for more meaningful and rewarding jobs and so far it has paid off! 

Yumi’s busy schedule

Yumi’s been considering going back into the workforce but she was quite relived that none of her applications led to a job, so I think she’s not quite ready to stop being a consultant and I think that’s fine. She needs to do what’s right for her and she’s just finished a short but very creative job which involved her going to Adelaide for almost a week while I looked after the dogs (yes, plural, more on that shortly). She was the roving reporter for the three days and on the final day she presented her view of the future workforce for Aged Care for an audience of nearly 2,000 people. She really enjoyed herself and got a lot of ideas for the business from it, so let’s see what happens next.

The greyhound volunteering has also been very busy with lots of dogs moving, adoptions and rehomes, market events, community walks and more and more people wanting to volunteer for the charity, which is great. Our friend Kath (Michael’s wife) who lives only 5 minutes away was here this morning at Greyhound Central (also known as our home) when we had four dogs come in and took one home to pass on to someone who can only pick her (Summer) up later tonight. That really helps because four dogs in the backyard is a bit too much for Dash (and us!) to handle. 

Jessie the returning guest Greyhound

Last time I wrote we had Jessie as a guest dog coming back from an unsuccessful adoption, so we fostered her and then she got adopted again, yay! O so we thought, because this one didn’t work out for a different reason. Despite all the preparation the adopting family’s 3 year old could not yet understand that Jessie sometimes needs her space and kept touching her and hugging her. Jessie tried to get away, but the girl kept chasing her and eventually she started growling and barking. The adopters were really heartbroken because they understand it’s not Jessie’s fault, but they can’t make their child grow up any faster, so we took her back for another 3 weeks. 

In the process we found out that one dog is really enough for us. It’s like parents who already have two kids and then have a third, everything just becomes that much harder. She is a lovely dog and really funny and cheeky, but she’s such a handful when going on walks, especially if you have to walk them alone. Fortunately for her (and us) she got adopted again last Friday and we hope this time she found her forever home. The family seems well prepared and will love her to pieces. If it doesn’t work out, we’ve already resolved to take her back again, and again, and again until she finds the right place. We haven’t told Dash yet, who seems happy to be a single child again…😊

Dash’s plastic adventure

Two weeks ago on a Sunday night Yumi was preparing the dogs’ dinner and part of that is a slice of meat from a big, smelly and disgusting looking plastic wrapped sausage that apparently has salmon and duck in it. I am not so sure, but they love it, so we throw it in their kibble every now and then. They inhale the stuff like it’s a gourmet meal, so good for them. A bit less good was that while Yumi reached for the bin to dispose of the 30 cm long plastic wrap sliver, dash grabbed that and swallowed it in a milli-second. We tried to open his mouth and pull it out but we were just in time to see it disappear in the back of his throat. I wasn’t too worried, but Yumi was, of course, and she was right! Every website that we immediately checked said to go to the vet right away and get it out. If it’s only a small piece it will work its way out eventually, but long slivers can get balled up and tangled, causing severe constipation and even death. 

So off to the emergency vet we went. Dash was happy as a clam, not at all aware that he would get a nice treat to make him really nauseous to get him to spew. We sat in the waiting room for an hour and out he comes, happy as a clam again, like nothing happened! After he throws up they give him another shot to make him feel better, so for him it was just “I am happy, ow that stings, I don’t feel so good in my tummy, blegh, sorry, oooh, I feel good again” all in the space of 45 minutes. The bill was a lovely $425 dollars, but fortunately we have insurance, so we ended up $100 out of pocket, which is still a LOT of dog snacks.  

SES activities 

I am not sure how much longer I will stay with SES, I just can’t seem to find my spot. It’s nothing to do with the people or anything they are friendly enough. I think it’s just the lack of activity and involvement. I was so used to being involved and busy all the time and here it’s really just a bit of training and every now and then we get to do something small that they think is a really big deal. It doesn’t feel like the SES that I loved so much in Victoria and I am getting a bit tired of pretending that it is. 

Coming Thursday my friend Michael and I will visit the Ripley RFS Station, to perhaps join the volunteer firefighters. That’s always been an ambition of mine, even when still in Victoria. It might be good to wear a different uniform, do completely different things and still be able to help to keep the community safe. I hope they like us for it, we have a few things going for us, like already being part of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, having all our checks and cards, years of experience with an emergency service and operational disaster experience. Next time I write I might have switched my orange outfit for a yellow one!

I did go on a search for a missing person with SES about a month ago. The person was found by a member of the public, unfortunately no longer alive, but we searched for 3 days (I only did one of those) in 30-38 degree heat with about 20 people each time, but it was a big area. At some point I became team leader of those 20 people and I really didn’t enjoy that at all. Half of the team had never been on a search; the other half was not planning on following instructions and the guy who was team leader first wasn’t very good at it too. I was happy when the day was over. It turned out the next area we would have searched was where the person was found the same day. I am really glad we missed it, no one needs to see that, especially newer members.

By now I’ve also completed most of the training that I already had in Victoria, so I can go out on most jobs again, even if it’s only for a few more weeks (I hope). It all feels like such a waste of time, but then again, you can never train enough! We did a fun event with 4 of us last Sunday where we were out at the Springfield Lakes Sunday Market and I got to talk to lots of people about preparing for emergencies. But we were really there to pat everyone’s dog and hand out stickers to kids, haha. I realised a few weeks back that I should get organised around having our own emergency kit. I am happy to report that we now have almost everything we need to stay safe for at least 5 days. 50 litres of water, food, first aid and tools, all packed and ready to go or help us survive when cut off. It’s actually a bit silly that I didn’t do this sooner, it really only took 2 hours to get it organised. 

CMI volunteering

My volunteering with the Change Management Institute is going well. We just had another really good morning event in the city that is my favourite. It’s basically a bunch of change people like me standing around. Talking for 5 minutes about a topic we all voted on and then moving on to the next one. We cover a lot of ground and it’s a fun way to stay up to date with what others are thinking. And then when it’s 9am you have the whole day ahead and I feel energised and then some!

We’re also about to have an end-of-year event with some fun prizes and a big celebration of the year that was. I like organising these things for the community, to create a sense of togetherness. I wanted it to be much grander, but the team didn’t spring into action until a few weeks ago and all the preparation went out the window. I knew this might happen so I wasn’t too annoyed, but it’s still a bit frustrating that it could have been much more than what it is now, but it’s good as it is. There’s always next year! I had a meeting with the CEO for CMI to discuss the volunteer experience and she seems very switched on. We chatted about all sorts of things that would make it more fun for volunteers to join and stay involved, so let’s see what she does with my plans and ideas. It always takes a long time for things to happen within CMI, but eventually they do happen. 

I was strongly encouraged by the current country co-lead, the volunteer person looking after the six state committees, (it’s really only 50 people at most) to put my hand up for a co-lead position coming up, but I don’t think I will right now. I am happy where I am, doing what I do, nice and simple. Normally I’d always go for the lead role, but I’ve seen what that’s like in CMI and really don’t need that in my life. There are other ways to influence and be of service 😊.

Small things

• New plates and bowls

I fi-nal-ly decided to buy some new plates and bowls. I know it’s stupid but I hemmed and hummed way too much over this. We’ve been using the super cheap plates from Target and Big W, basically since we came to Australia, but I felt it was time for ‘grown-up’ dinner ware. They are still not very expensive or fancy (plain white, 8 big ones, 8 small ones and 8 bowls for $160), but they feel like a luxury to me! Fortunately, I chose well, 100% by the pictures and reviews on the internet and even found vegan bone china-like plates and bowls. That just means there’s no ground up animal bones in them, so that’s a win. No more sharp, chipped edges and ugly cracks and scratches. They are so smoooooothhhhh, I love them!

• Robert and Helen coming over

Next week our friends from ‘Up North’ (It’s really only 50km…) Helen and Robert will come over for lunch and to hang out for a bit, which should be good fun. We always try to wow each other with some new and exciting vegan food options (or as exciting as vegan food ever gets) and just sit and chat, you know, like middle-aged people do. They are thinking of adopting a greyhound at some point, so Dash will do his best to be a good ambassador for his breed and who knows, they might start the new year with a new furry companion!

• UQ team Christmas Lunch

My former University of Queensland colleagues asked me to join them for the end-of-year lunch on 1 December and it will be nice to see them again. A lot of people have left since I left, but it’ll be nice to hear how everyone is doing and have a good meal. They even want to present me with a gift for my work with the Social Club, so I asked them to make a donation to charity because I really have everything I need.

• Holiday plans

We’re thinking of going to the Sunshine Coast after I finish up at Griffith and possibly begin a new job at Super Retail Group. We’ll have to find an accommodation where we can bring Dash because we’re taking him with us and he needs a place to stay while we go diving for a few of those days. By the time the next letter comes around you’ll hear more about how that went.

• Lawnmower

At the start of October I finally gave in and bought an electric lawn mower and boy should I have done that much earlier! The original hand mower somehow got its blades misaligned and I couldn’t get it the work properly anymore. As you know, I hate gardening with a passion and using a malfunctioning tool does not make it easier or me any happier. So off to Bunning I went after doing some online research and an hour later I was mowing the lawn like a pro! I also bought one of those whipper snippers and I couldn’t be happier. It’s not all perfectly straight and evenly mowed, but give it a few more months and I’ll be the pride of the neighbourhood, haha!

• 1-year anniversary of Living in Brisbane

On 27 September we completed a full year in Brisbane and we’ve agreed that this was another good decision. The weather is as amazing as we hoped with 300+ days of sunshine, there’s new things to see and do and we got to reinvent a few things about ourselves. Springfield Lakes is a very good place to live, with everything we need close enough to live comfortably. We do wish we’d be closer to the ocean but it’s so very expensive to do so that it’s a bit silly, so we drive up to the coast every now and then to get our ‘salty sea-air fix’.

Okay, I think that’s most of it for now. I’ll be sure to get in touch around Christmas time, but you can expect another letter early January for sure.

Stay cool and be well,

Gilbert 

Letter to Marlis Jul-Aug 2023

 

Springfield Lakes, 11 September 2023

Hi Marlis,

Happy Birthday! I’ll give you a call and hope this letter finds you exactly on Tuesday the 12th, but make it a good day and treat yourself to something nice! I hope you are keeping well and are looking forward to being outside a bit more once again. It’s been a very full-on two months, so let’s get straight into it.

Trip to the Netherlands

From 26 July to 7 August we were back in the Netherlands and it was good to see family, friends and Rotterdam once again. Everyone really went all out to make us feel welcome and I couldn’t stop marvelling at how many vegan food options there were to choose from. Australia is not bad at all, but wow, the Netherlands really takes it to the next level. Yummm! 

It’s quite bizarre to see how much all the kids have grown, with most of them now already or soon becoming teenagers! When did that happen?! Other than that we realised that it’s us who have changed the most really. We look at how people behave in traffic, the crowds everywhere, the weather and the price-levels and we’re like “yeah, nah”, rather live in Brisbane. There’s so much to tell about all we did in those two weeks, that I’ve sectioned it up for easier reading and tried to keep it in order. 😊

Staying at my parents

The flight in was uneventful and long, as expected. We left on Wednesday 3am here and arrived on Wednesday at 9pm there, but of course with the time difference, more than 26 hours had passed. My mum and dad picked us up at the airport and drove us back to their place, where we also stayed the last time in 2019. It really is like a hotel, nothing to worry about, everything is there when you need it, your food is ready when you get back and you can come and go whenever you like. They did everything they possibly could to make our stay as comfortable as possible and it was! 

The next-morning jetlag wasn’t so bad and we immediately got started on the program after breakfast to go up north and visit a contact of Yumi’s. It’s called the “dementia-village” and they have a unique approach to assisted living for people with Alzheimer. The idea is to let them all live together in a village like setting with support 24/7 when they need it instead of institutionalising and hiding them away them in rooms until they die. 

Yumi visited for 2 hours and I went exploring a nearby castle (“The Muiderslot”) that I grew up with hearing about and seeing in tv series, but never actually visited. It would have been nice if not for the weather which was just pouring down with bucketloads of rain. Little did we know that would be the theme for every.single.day! So much rain. 

We worked around it and it didn’t make too much of a difference to our plans, although we got rained out more often in 2 weeks than in the past 3 years or so.  Ah well, we got some good use out of the umbrellas we bought and got lucky a few times during the day, but it was horrendous for most of our stay. I’d go out for early morning walks to have a look around and see the old neighbourhood (we used to live about 3km away) but always had to bring an umbrella for those surprise rain showers, haha!

It was nice to have the evenings together with my parents to just sit and chat, until the jetlag caught up on the first few days. We also spent the Saturday together going to a museum (photography), having a fancy lunch and going to the cinema to see the latest Indiana Jones movie. Totally forgettable movie, but it was great to do things together. My dad had not been in a cinema for 17 years, so that was quite the experience for him too!

Road trip down memory lane

I always like to visit the places that used to be significant, like where the family business used to be, the street I grew up in, the first house I remember living in, my old school, that sort of thing. Some places are filled with sadness, others with great joy, most a bit of both. It’s amazing the things you remember when you are in the actual location, although it gets a bit busy with all the memories trying to push to the front at the same time. 

Because I get up at stupid o’ clock wherever I am and it was summer with long days over there, I had the opportunity to spend some time in solitude in these places and just be there in the moment with no other people, no traffic or other noises. The connection to these places is slowly growing distant and fading away as buildings, people and places disappear and new elements get added. It’s not always a bad thing, but I notice it a bit more every time we visit, which is normal I guess. 

The most fun I had when I went to the campus of the Erasmus University where I met Yumi all the way back in 1997. I was literally the only person there, which isn’t strange if you consider it was Sunday morning 6am-ish. So many new buildings, some old remaining ones, places where we used to hang out, paths we used to walk together with our study mates. They’ve really spruced up the place over the years and now that I’ve worked at various universities, I see them in a very different way as to when I was a student there. 

A day out in Rotterdam

Yumi and I had a great day in Rotterdam just going around, looking at how everything had changed and doing some shopping and eating. We took the train into town from where my parents live and stopped at a shopping centre we used to live next to just to see how everything had changed.

 

It was remarkably similar still, but a bit more modern. We continued our trip into the city, checked out the (still quite) new Central Station which looks very sci-fi and spacious and then walked our way towards what is still the best apple pie in the city, they even had a vegan option, yay! Then we did some more walking and Yumi spent about an hour buying clothes (that she needed) while I just went for a few loops around the city by myself. Again, so many memories, but it’s still the same beautiful, loud, ugly, everchanging and rough city that will always stay in my blood. 

We had a nice lunch, walked around some more, bought cool socks for me and rode the train back just looking out the window to see how much the city has changed and continues to do so. 

Visiting friends

On Sunday we visited my friend of nearly 25 years Alex, Suzan and their three girls in their new (to us) home and it was just the best to see them do so well, the girls getting all grown up and hearing about their lives. They’d just come back from a three week holiday and about to go back to work, so we just sat around and chatted about life, work and plans for the future, as you do. My only regret was that we couldn’t stay longer, they are such lovely people!

On Monday we visited Yumi’s best friend of nearly 25 years and to get there we took the touristic route past the towns we used to go to for either shopping, entertainment or sports and we also stopped in Oostvoorne (East of Voorne) which is an island and part of the southwest coast of the Netherlands. I spent my teenage years there when my parents moved there because it as safer. It was also incredibly white and not unlike a rural town with the same rural mentality. I never really liked it there, but it was an okay place to live, with the beach and coastal forests nearby. It has changed a lot, but we were mostly there to see the coast and then move on to Hester, Aschwin and their kids. We stayed a bit longer this time around and again just chatted about life and everyday stuff. That’s the great thing about our long-time friends, you don’t need a lot of time to get used to each other again, you just pick up where you left off when you last saw each other😊.

Arnhem

On Tuesday we picked up our rental car in Rotterdam City while the sun was out for a whole 30 minutes before it rained again and travelled 120km to the east of the Netherlands to stay in a place called Arnhem (from the World War II movie The Longest Day) that is very close to Germany and just a 10 minute drive from Yumi’s parents. They are getting on in age being a very respectable 74 and 75 years old (spring chickens compared to your 89, course 😊), so it was all a bit too much for them to have us around for the full five days, that’s why we arranged for accommodation in Arnhem. The place was nice enough and had everything we needed, aside from an elevator. If you look past the massive roadworks going on in the street outside, around town and the 8 flights of stairs we had to go up and don every time we went out, it really had everything we needed and with the city, shops, parks and parking all 5 minutes walking away. My personal favourite was dragging the big 30kg suitcase up and down those stairs, yay…No, just kidding the best parts were the morning walks through the city and parks and going out for dinner to a fully vegan restaurant on our last night in town. Unfortunately, in a very rare occurrence Yumi wasn’t feeling well and we had to leave before dessert. She was fine again later that evening and the food until then had been wonderful!

The 50-year wedding anniversary

One of the main reasons for us to come to the Netherlands was Yumi’s parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. It was Yumi’s parents, her brother Kenji and sister-in-law Roos (Rose) and their two sons (15 and 13) plus me and we had a wonderful time together. We travelled all the way down to the most southern part of the Netherlands, near Maastricht and stayed in a farmstead-style hotel with a great restaurant and beautiful surroundings. 

Yumi’s dad, my 13-year old nephew and I went for a walk when we arrived and passed a hill that had some pretty impressive stairs. Of course we needed to go up those! That was probably the dumbest thing I did in a while. Not for my nephew and me, but Yumi’s dad (remember how I said he’s now 74) still has the spirit, but not the body for those sorts of shenanigans and at some point on the way back I was really worried that he was going to have a medical emergency due this blood sugar. He walks 3 hours multiple times a week, but going up hat turned out to be THE LONGEST STAIRS in the Netherlands was not a smart move. Fortunately we made it safely back down, after, of course, getting rained on and back to the hotel but I was really shaken to see how he’d become frailer since the last time we met. Food is a big thing in the Stamet family so we had a 6 course dinner and just enjoyed each other’s company a lot. 

The next morning we got up on time, well, everybody else slept in to about 7am, while I got an early morning walk in and came up with the idea to go to the three-country point. It was really close by and the fun factor there is that you can be in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands all at the same time. It was another one of those cheesy things that you never quite get to do, but since we were so close, we diverted from the plan a bit and made a quick stop to get the photo opportunity for posterity. It was just as cheesy as you’d imagine, but fun all the same. From there we continued on to an American War Memorial (the place is full of them!) which had a similar atmosphere to the bigger ones in Normandy, France. They always make me sad about the needless waste of lives and all the sorrow war brings, but it was good to see the interest the boys had and Yumi’s dad was completely in his element explaining how the liberation and D-Day all happened. From there we continued on to something that doesn’t quite translate, but let’s call it a pie-baking workshop, again, completely vegan, especially for me. I wish we hadn’t because the workshop was great fun and the pie we ate while waiting for ours to finish was also very good, but none of our eight pies turned out to be very tasteful. They were well-baked and looked great, but taste-wise, a bit meh. Ah well, the process itself was fun, the end-result didn’t matter too much 😊.

Visiting more friends

The day after we came back from the family get-together we went and visited my other best friend, Just, who I’ve known for 26 years and change now. Him, his wife Marit and their son Jurre moved up north about 3 years ago and they live in the Green Heart of the Netherlands. It is truly beautiful there! We went for a big walk through the old growth woods and had a lovely lunch without their very energetic 10-year old boy (he stayed with grandma and grandpa so we could have a conversation longer than 3 minutes and then hung out at their house before making a taco dinner and going for ice-cream later that evening. It was good for the soul to see them again!

Wrapping up and going home

The last day of our stay we went for a long hike with Yumi’s dad, or that was the plan!  But it started pouring down with rain (again) after 45 minutes, of course, just when we’d reached the point of no return, so we put up our umbrellas and soldiered on. It was a good, shared experience, but was it fun? No, not quite but we had a good laugh about it when we got back!  We warmed up and dried our clothes over lunch and miraculously, no one got sick, ha!

The next day was one of those long travel days where we left Arnhem, swung by Yumi’s parents to say our goodbyes, drive back to Rotterdam to drop off the rental car, stopped by at my mom’s work (she works in a clothes store) to say goodbye, hang out with my dad for a few hours and then got dropped off at the airport to go home.  The trip back was uneventful and we arrived without issues on Wednesday morning at 7am. We thought of taking the train, but ended up splurging on a taxi as we were ready to go back home.  It was good to be back with Dash later that morning and it didn’t look like had missed us all that much, haha.

Finishing up at UQ

We came back on Wednesday and on Friday I resigned from work at the University of Queensland. Before we went on holidays I already felt like my best work was done and I needed to go somewhere else. The time away made it clear this was the best path forward so into my new manager’s office I went and set the date for Friday 8 September. I really wanted this to be the job that I stayed in, but it wasn’t to be. I said I’d stay at least 12 months and I achieved that. I also wanted to feel like I explored all possibilities and I also feel I did that. There were many things I am proud of having made them happen, but there’s just not enough to work with to make change happen. Which is ironic if you think of it, as the university slogan is: “Create change”. 

When I started, there were 25+ change managers. A year later it’s closer to 10, that should tell you enough about how the role is valued. Perhaps in a few years from now they’ll rethink their approach, but for now our ways will part. I’ve left them with a complete training module for staff in 20 parts that we created as a team, let’s see if that helps! I made some very good friends, built my network, had many opportunities to speak about change and help others, so on balance I feel like I did good work. Over the past three months and with new leadership I could just see where my role and the main project were going, so I stopped on a high note and got out of the way of the new direction. I’m sure they will do fine without me, as they’ve done for a long time, but they’ll know I was there and made things better too.

My team had organised a very nice send-off and a card with lovely words. Instead of a gift that is nice but not all that useful, they did a collection and donated $150 to the National Homeless Collective, which is the best gift I can think of. I had the opportunity to finish it all off with a team lunch that was already planned, hand in all my equipment and badge and was out the door at 1pm on 1 September with a week of paid leave to give myself a bit of a break.

Things I do when not working

Of course I have to go and find a new job to keep me entertained and there’s been some interest but it’s all for the jobs that I always do and I’d like something a bit more senior, to really build a new practice, help lead a significant project or do something extraordinary and that’s a bit harder to find. It’s strange to hear so many people (really, at least 2 dozen or so) say that I’ll have a job in no time and I guess it depends on what they mean by “no time”, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. I do the work, I am active in the online change community, volunteer for CMI, speak at conferences every now and then and have quite a few followers on professional platforms but somehow people who hire change managers don’t see me as the logical choice. I’ll have to work on that somehow but it’s not clear to me what ‘that’ is exactly. Oh well, I have nothing but time to figure it out.

Over the past few weeks I made a list of the things I will do when I am not working, so I don’t end up wasting time and it’s been going well so far. I’ve updated my online profiles, wrote a bit about change management, washed the car, mowed the lawn, found a new energy supplier (more solar!), bought new shoes, recycled 277 bottles collected on my daily litter picking trips, updated our administration, cleaned up my digital files and did a ton of other chores so they are out of the way. I also cleaned up the garage and that was fun to do. Yumi was away for the day doing dog things so I went through most of our stuff and finally got rid of a lot of books and other heavy things that just stood there gathering dust. Went from 7 random boxes down to 3, so when the next move (let’s hope that doesn’t happen for a while) comes around, we’ll have less to carry. We’ll drop off some books at a charity book fair, but all the Dutch books I just threw out, we hadn’t looked at them for 10 years and most were 25 years old. Time to go!

This week I’ll start some online learning about Digital Transformation, which is fancy speak for change management in technological spaces, I won’t bore you with the detail. It’s about 40 hours of learning, so that’ll keep me entertained for a week or 2 and fill a gap I feel I have in my professional profile. I’ll probably find there’s a lot that I already know, but I hope to learn some new things too!

Yumi’s work and volunteering

Yumi’s been keeping busy, but perhaps not as busy as she likes. She’s going through the process of finding new clients, doing interesting work for existing ones and coming up with new ideas for the business. I think she’ll come up with something new that works for her, she always does and there’s no hurry. I’ve learned that it’s something she has to do for herself, so I try to be supportive and leave it to her 😊. 

Her other job, coordinating the grey hounds across Southern Brisbane is keeping her busy too. There are always new dogs to get to a new home, markets and walks to go to, yards to check and administration to keep organised. There are some changes to Queensland legislation about putting dogs down, making it much harder to just euthanise ex-greyhounds, so they expect to get even busier. I just drive around, help with the logistics and go for the occasional walk, but she’s full-on invested and I think that’s great. I always knew she’d do well and she’s 100% acing it!

Jessie the visiting greyhound

We’ve got a house guest for the next couple of weeks as she recovers from a urinary tract infection. Jessie is a three year old ball of lovely energy who came into the world a hermaphrodite, so she had girl and boy parts. When she got desexed they removed most of the boy parts and now she’s a girl for most of it. She’ll never have puppies and is a bit bigger than most girl dogs but she’s just as lovely as the rest of them. She and Dash get along very well, a bit too well sometimes because this week their play got a bit rough (she always starts and Dash bit her too hard on the neck. A big yelp and a small puncture later they were both in their own corner, very confused about what had just happened. She’s fine, it’s what happens with dogs! 

The first few days she was in pain and she would pee all over the house, but the next day we got her on medication and she immediately improved. She as supposed to go to a foster carer, but they said they couldn’t handle a sick dog, so now we have her until the end of the month and then she has a family waiting to adopt her that Yumi found at a market event last week. She was planning to bring Dash, but decided to bring jessie for some extra marketing and good thing she did because this family fell in love with her. Good times!

We’re experiencing what it’s like to have 2 dogs and we’re not really enjoying it, but it’s okay for now. It’s just so much more hassle going for walks, getting in the car, sharing the sofa, the house smells of dog all the time and there’s beds everywhere. It’ll be fine for the next few weeks but one dog is more than enough, thank you. I marvel at how people with three kids have 2 dogs, 2 cats and more! Yikes! 😊

SES training

I am still not completely at ease in my new SES unit but am slowly finding my way. It all just feels like a huge waste of my time to have to redo all the training, or at least all the ones that matter. Then again, people are slowly coming around to the fact that I am not completely new and have done more jobs than probably 30 members combined. I know it’s not just me being precious because my friend Michael, who is quite different from me, feels the same way, but we can’t quite put our finger on what the issue really is. We’ve made a pact to stay at least one year, so a few more months to go and then we’ll revisit the whole thing. Maybe this is just what SES volunteering in Queensland is about and this is as good as it gets. I heard that Melbourne got slammed with 500+ jobs and that always makes me want to go and help!

We did a useful training course last weekend, to enable us to go on searches for missing people and to assist police with forensic searches and I thought it was okay. Didn’t learn anything new, but at least it wasn’t boring. I’ve also put my hand up to use my trainer qualifications for the sake of the unit and get involved in the train-the-trainer course. Let’s see how that turns out and what they are after. I’d prefer not to be in a leading role, but I do believe in education and building capability, so if that’s a way for me to use my experience and help out, that works for me. Michael said the other day that we have to find something that connects us to it all and I think he’s right because in VICSES it used to be the jobs we go on together, but here we go without jobs for weeks if not months on end, so it’ll have to be something else.

Lots of small things

You’ve been reading for a while now, so I’ll keep the next section a bit shorter and make a lot of short mentions of other things that have happened over the past few weeks.

 Yumi’s dance performance late July was good fun. They really did a good job at entertaining the audience and put in a lot of hours of practice. I thought it was going to be so-so, but it was pretty good, considering that none of these people are professional dancers and I would not go on stage in a leotard to save my life! Her next big performance is next week at Brisfest and of course I’ll be there to take pictures for future generations, haha!

 Next week I’ll help my SES buddy Michael and his family move house. They arrived a few months later than we did but have already bought a property in the neighbourhood because they like it so much here that they intend to stay, yay! It’ll be a fun day of moving stuff down the street with a truck because they are quite literally moving 500 meters or so. 

 I am still enjoying the online teaching I do for Deakin, although it was a bit disappointing to agree to stop doing the masterclasses. Not just because they make me really good money, but it’s the different type of interaction that I enjoyed. However, the self-paced course we built and recently updated is outcompeting the Masterclass offering, so one has to go and that’s that. Oh well, the other is fun too. I had two papers to grade last week and one was very good and the other okay, which is a big improvement over other months where the quality is just not there and it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

 I’ve been keen to go diving again, but things (dog things) keep getting in the way. The downside to where we live is that all the diving happens on the other end of town. We’ll have to consider that when we move house again, but right now it just means we have to get organised around Dash and Yumi’s many other obligations. It’ll happen, hopefully in two weeks!

 This week we did another event with the Change Management Institute where 20 or so change managers all meet up at 7.30am to talk about topics that are on our mind. It’s always such an energy boost and I get a lot of ideas for new events there too. This week we’ll organise networking drinks which are always entertaining and a good excuse to get into the city. We’re thinking of also organising an end-of-year event but I’ve been trying to get everyone organised and they just keep putting it off and delaying so I am fine if it doesn’t happen. I’ve been doing this long enough to know when it gets frustrating and I’ll just step back a bit for now 😊. 

 Speaking of stepping back, I’ve stopped volunteering for the shark and rays people. I would have loved to stay on but the way it was run was not going to work for me. We’ve also stepped back from the landcare volunteering as the timing generally didn’t work for both Yumi and me. Oh well, we tried it and there will always be some other thing to do. 

 Last month and this month we celebrate(d) living in Brisbane for a year already! Where did all that time go?! I can easily say it’s been another good decision for team Stamet/Kruidenier. It’s a great place to live and work! The next year will be equally interesting to see what comes our way and what will happen next. We always say that we hope this year will be a bit more relaxed and calmer, but that’s not been true for, well, forever, so perhaps we should just stop saying it altogether, haha!

 I’ve been enjoying the extra time I had to read, write and do lots of gaming. I am almost done with a game called Dark Souls 3 which is one of the hardest games to play. You play as a knight, defeating big bosses and they are like puzzles that you have to solve. They can be beaten, but some take as many as 60-70 tries and I always feel a strange sense of pride when I get it done. I only have the final boss to defeat and I know I can do it, it’s just a matter of sitting down for 2-3 hours to get it done and I’ll use my time for other things first, I think. In the meantime I am replaying a game from 25 years ago and it’s just the best fun. I don’t remember much of it but because they added some features it moves a lot faster and you get to enjoy the story more, which is just what I wanted when I played it in 1999. Geez, I am getting old!

 There are plans for me to write another book about change management with another change manager from Sydney. Her and I get along very well and both have ideas about the ethics of change management. Right now it’s only the germ of an idea, but these things have a tendency to happen, so let’s see where it goes. I’ve started compiling lots of reading material so we can build the framework, then add the cartoons and colours and see what we can create. That’ll be a 2024 project.

 My friend Peter and I ran an online ‘Murder Mystery’ two weeks ago for a change management conference that one of friends organised for the 4th time around. It’s a bit like Clue, with funny weapons, suspects, locations and a complicated schedule of who did what when and how. It was hilarious and we enjoyed creating it nearly as much as the people playing it. At some point we might have to get serious about the Bad Change Company because we have a lot of content and could probably set up a real business around it. That’ll also be a 2024 project!

 Losing weight has been going well too, just the other week I saw 85kg and my goal for this month is to hold onto that on my way to 82.5 by the end of the year. I’ve dropped close to 8 kilos so far and it didn’t really feel all that hard. Now that I am not working for a bit I’ll have to take extra care, but so far, so good!

Okay, that’s it for now, I hope you have a very good day on your birthday and will write to you again in two months from now.

Be well,

Gilbert

 

Springfield Lakes, 9 July

 

Hi Marlis,

 

I hope you are staying warm and comfortable during the cold Canberra winters, we’ve had a few chilly mornings here two! I wasn’t expecting to see ambient temperatures of -2, but that’ only early in the morning, most days it still gets up to 22-25 degrees.

 As usual, it feels like not much has happened, but I am sure when I start writing it’ll turn out to have been quite busy for the past two months. Here we go!

 

Scuba diving

Our first trip in April wasn’t much of a success, but we were determined to come again and see what the diving at Tweed Heads near Gold Coast was like. We had to wait for the weather a bit but a few weeks ago we got some good weather, packed up the gear and off we went. We were smart enough to bring our thicker wetsuits because 22-degree water sounds kind of nice, but it gets quite crisp after 45 minutes floating around in it. The first dive we wore our 3mm light suits, but the second we upgraded to 7mm, and my goodness was it hard to get them on when we were wet but the suits dry as a bone after not being used for a few years. We’d completely forgotten about how hard this could be. Yumi broke 2 nails and I think I pulled a few things in my back! Well, at least we were warmed up when we finally got into them😊.

The diving was okay for things we could see this time. The last time visibility was non-existent, but now it was 5-10 meters, which is not bad. We saw lots of small fish, a resting Wobbegong (leopard print) shark and enjoyed just going over the rocks to explore and see what was there. We had a lot of new people on the group who were having the usual issues getting and staying down, but Yumi and I just stuck together and had a good time. I got to wear my new boots, use my new white snorkel and saw a whole school of catfish that moves like one big organism. Pretty neat.

 A bit less neat was that both our dive computers (just serviced) malfunctioned and would only tell us how much air we had left, but our depth gauges got stuck on 0.5 meters for Yumi and 999 for me. As it was only a shallow dive, where we couldn’t go beyond 8-9 meters, we didn’t worry about it and just enjoyed the experience. We sent them for repairs, but the guy who checked them out not 4 weeks back said they were a write-off and after 15 years of problem-free service, we get that, but we were still quite sour about it because they are not cheap. So, we went online and did some research. Which is to say, I looked around for 20 minutes and found what I needed and Yumi did 20 hours of research and made a complete spreadsheet. We ended up going to a store much closer by this time and both bought watches instead of consoles, some new gauges and $1,700 lighter left the store feeling pretty good about the whole deal as we expected it would be $3,000, which is just crazy money. But if they last us 10 years or more, it’s a pretty good deal for things that keep you alive under water. Yumi’s watch is one of those fancy smart watches that tell you 100 things about your body, breathing, the weather and you name it. Mine is much less fancy and just tells the time, temperature and dive time, which is exactly how I like it because I will only wear the thing when diving anyway.

We were hoping to go diving this weekend, but winter weather can be tricky and despite the possibility of seeing humpback whales, they decided to play it safe and not go, so we’re not diving this month and will see if we can go out in August once we’re back from the Netherlands!   

 

SES

I am still getting used to the new way of doing things at SES. My group of new members is still on probationary paperwork after 6 months, which means we can’t do most things and everyone seems to be okay with that, so I just go along and try to enjoy myself as much as I can. Training nights are on Wednesdays and that works most weeks, have a bit of fun from 19.00 to 22.00 doing maintenance or some practice scenarios. I am getting to know the people a bit more and like always they are good fun to be around. It’s just that there’s absolutely nothing happening and after the busyness of Victorian SES that just feels weird. I know it’s odd to want bad things to happen and I don’t, but what’s the point in training if you never use it?

We did do a community event which was good fun, with lots of people dancing and singing, a massive cockatoo statue on a trailer and so many SES stickers kids could have on their t-shirts. I think one had 15 or so all over him. He seemed to be enjoying himself, so why not! We also did a unit exercise at night with about 30 people, pretending like we were extracting a hiker casualty off the mountain with all our equipment and teamwork. The first part was good fun, going uphill, looking for clues and the ‘victim’, working as a small team, I think we did really well. The way down was more chaotic, and we had about 7 captains who all felt they should steer the ship and then there was me trying to get them to slow down while everyone else was just trying to get down as fast as possible. Many lessons were learned that night, but most of all we had a good laugh, found out what didn’t work, and all went home safely.

My buddy Michael and I have a pact that we’ll stick around until the end of the year, do some more training and see if it gets a bit more active before we decide if this is the SES, we want to be a part of. I’m planning to do training in storm damage operations, land search and safe working at heights. I’ve done all of that before, but the way training is (dis) organised here, I am probably better off just doing it all again and be done with it. In the meantime, I clean up a bit every time I go, and the place has really started to look more organised already, which I really enjoy, so at least I get something out of it!

 

Work

Work has been slow for the past 4 weeks, but that was expected, so I was prepared and had many ways to keep myself entertained. Our new Director, Joanna, started this week and my first impression is that she doesn’t miss much and will be able to do good things for the team. The project I am supposed to spend half my time on, maybe takes 4-5 hours per week and I don’t see that increase anytime soon. Things are moving very slow because everyone is pulled in all directions and then there’s me, just minding my own business, keeping things on track and that works for me.

I organised four send-offs and 2 welcomes for colleagues in the past two months and have told the team that whoever goes or comes next, I am not doing it! One person left because she was never a really good fit, all big ideas, but not much practical things got done. Another was so frustrated with all the changes she just up and left and didn’t come back. The other two were much more graceful and just did the job until the last day, so I got all of them some nice gifts and a card, as you do, and they were happy to know we will miss them. For my new director I prepared the mother of all welcome packs, and she could not stop talking about how good it was, so I consider that a job well done. If it helps her get up to speed faster, than it helps us too, so everybody wins.

Last week I got to play tour guide around campus for a Change Management friend visiting from New Zealand with his wife and daughter and that was good fun. The weather was quite bad the day before and after, but the Monday itself was good for walking around, so I showed them around the grounds and some of the more interesting buildings and they loved it. His 6-year-old daughter got to see the birds and long-neck turtles and climb some trees, which I really wanted to join in on, but I kept it professional, and we had a good time. He had many questions about living in Australia and with us coming up on 10 years in the country I couldn’t recommend it enough.

Other than that, we as a team got into trouble (not really, it’s with Marketing, nobody cares what they think…) for creating some posters and hanging them up around our office. They demanded we take them down because they weren’t exactly perfect to their standards (they were) and they even reported me personally for being suspected of having gained financially from the design work. In reality I asked a friend who did it for free while on holiday using their specifications. But never let the facts get in the way of stabbing a well-intentioned colleague in the back! That’s the Marketing leader for you, all words, no clue…

The change management course for university staff I’ve been working on is coming together very nicely too. It should all be done by end of August, a bit later than we’d like, but that’s true for almost everything at the university so why should we be any different, haha!

New volunteer position with SARA

I’ve finally managed to land a volunteer position with Sharks and Rays Australia (SARA) as their Board Secretary. Not only will I get to build my skills and experience working as part of a board, it’s in the field of marine biology and conservation so I feel like it’s a pretty good deal! Their primary goal is to work on conservation of sawfish, who are critically endangered and need a lot of help. I’ll be working to keep everyone organised around meetings and regulations and put my hand up to help them write their Activity Report for 2021-2022. It turned out to be a lot more work than I thought, finding words and sifting through hundreds of pictures, but I did my best and will have to see what the feedback is. It’s a very small charity, but the people involved are all experts in their fields and the woman who runs it has been at it for years now. I hope she’s not like some founder/owners I’ve met who want everything exactly as they want it and micromanage things but so far so good! 😊 I expect to learn a lot from just being part of their meetings and will hopefully gain a few new contacts as well.

CMI events

We did another morning event in June with 20 or so change managers and it was as good as the last time. We break up into two groups, everybody nominates the topics they would like to chat about and then everyone votes on their favourites, so we know where to start (most voted goes first). For 45 minutes we talk about the different aspects of things that are top of mind and it’s good fun while also giving me new insights. I always get a lot of energy from it, despite the 7.30am start!

We’ve also started a mentoring program that gained much more interest than expected. I thought we’d end up with 5 couples, but that turned into 13 very quickly and I think people will get a lot out of it over the next six months. When I was with CMI in Victoria we did a similar thing and it was popular then as well, so I thought why not just do it again!

We’re now working towards an end-of-year event in the form of an awards night with a charity component and some recognition for people helping the change management community be its bets self. There’s a lot of work to be done and the team are not exactly getting started yet, but I’ve written the plan and created some communications (75% of the work), but we’ll see how it all goes. By next time I write you it will either be underway, or we’ve decided to cancel because we left it too long…

Yumi’s work and dog volunteering.

Yumi’s been quite busy over the past two months, both with work and the greyhound volunteering business. She’s working with a number of clients on different projects and seems to be enjoying herself being a bit busier than she was at the start of the year. In 2021 she did a training in a methodology called Semco style, I might have told you about earlier. The short of it is that it’s a practice-based organisational advisory framework that ahs gotten good results world-wide. After the training there were big plans to get some business out of it, but that all fell apart during Covid. Now it's back on the cards and she’s getting involved again. I am very curious to see where this will take her. She is loving the flexibility of working from home and having lots of time for her other job, being the greyhound coordinator for Love a Greyhound.

She’s zooming across Brisbane on a weekly basis now, doing yard checks, going on group dog walks, meeting people to introduce dogs and picking and dropping off food. Sometimes I join her but most of the time she’s out by herself just getting it all sorted. It’s just the best to see how much she’s enjoying it. She’s on the phone all the time, finding new homes, talking to her team and making sure everything is just right. I don’t think she expected to enjoy it this much, but she truly is, and I hope she’ll keep doing this for a long time. In the short period she’s been doing it, she’s already given 12 dogs a new home and put about 20 into foster care. Her ‘boss’ is loving her of course and so do the dogs!

Dash’s adventures

Dash is living his best life as usual, snoozing and munching the days away. But sometimes things get really exciting, and he gets a visitor dog who stays for a night. A few weeks ago, we had Bonnie over for a night before she went to her adopting parents in the morning and as a rule, we don’t let dogs sleep in our bed. It’s the one rule I will not break because it’s just weird. This is never an issue with Dash, who has his own bed and that’s comfier than ours any way. But Bonnie needed to stay the night and just kept getting on the bed. After about 3 hours of interrupted sleep, we just let her and be done with it, haha. Dash didn’t know what to make of her, but he’s really with other dogs and thought it was great fun to have a friend. Unfortunately, she is being treated for heartworm (she’ll be fine) but it’s a long-term treatment and she cannot be allowed to get excited, or her heart might be damaged, so they had to go on separate walks, and he didn’t know what to make of that either. In general, he’s a very good host and playmate but it’s very tiring for him, so when our furry guests leave, he sleeps even more than usual. Like I said, truly living his best life.

This weekend he’s staying with our friends Michael and Cat in preparation for our trip to the Netherlands and it was really weird not having him in the house for a whole evening and night. He’s just always there, excitedly coming to greet you or lazing around on the sofa. I am sure he’ll do fine because their youngest son of 4 is talking to him non-stop and he just lies there and pretends to listen. We’re very fortunate to have such lovely people looking after him and who knows, one day they might have their own greyhound or other doggo for Dash to play with.

He did have a bit of a misadventure where he either got scratched by and animal or just scraped his nose on something while out on a walk, but it looked like a bloody mess when it happened. It was a miniscule scratch but when your nose is as big as his, of course it will bleed a lot. No lessons were learned at all because the next day he was poking his big snoot into the exact same bushes again!

I’ve added some photo’s on the next pages for your entertainment, he’s mostly sleeping, but he does it very well. 😊

 Looking for a new job

I’ve started looking for a new job as I’ve quite literally done everything I can do at University of Queensland. I will complete the year as I set out to do and it flew by with all the new and wonderful experiences, but I’ve now reached the limits of what my team can handle. The project I am supposed to help on takes maybe a day of my time and everything else maybe another day, so in the meantime I keep myself entertained with all sorts of side-projects but as you know, that generally doesn’t last very long for me. I’m backing myself this time and am applying for more senior and director roles or roles that pay a lot of money for a short period of time. I’ll cash in for a bit and get our plans going again and then we’re back to doing meaningful and rewarding things. I keep reminding myself that we’ve only been her less than a year (5 more weeks and it’s a year) and we’re building a network still. I’ll try to be as useful as possible while I am looking for something else and my team knows, so there will be no drama and excitement, exactly how I like it. I hope that in my next letter I can tell you what the new job is, but it might be a while.

 

Short stuff

·      Our 16^th wedding anniversary was last week, so we went out for dinner and had a good time. After 16 years married and 26 years together, we still agree we make a pretty good team, so we’ve decided to extend the contract with at least another 16 and see what happens in 2039.

·      My parents bought a caravan! It’s a long-held dream of my dad to have their own mobile holiday home and I am just so proud that he/they actually did it at the age of 70. But I guess with you in your 80s you’d probably say they will get at least 15+ years out of it still, which I really hope to be true.

·      We had a nice dinner with our “friends up north” Helen and Robert who used to also live in Victoria and moved here about 6 months before we did. I was supposed to bring about 10 puzzles, had them sitting there for 2 days and still forgot them. Ah well, good reason for them to come over to our place soon!

·      I’ve been on a winning streak with my diet lately. I’m not really sure how it works this time, but I lost 7 kilos, and it wasn’t all that hard. The hardest part is remaining patient and not to expect results to soon. I’m at 86.6 now and the goal is 82.someting before I decide on plastic surgery, but I might try to make it all the way to 78 and see what that feels like. If I reach 82 by the end of the year, that’d be great!

·      The trip to the Netherlands will feature prominently in the next letter. We’re all set up and ready to go and will have a busy schedule for sure. I’m not sure it still feels like a holiday, but it’ll be fun and that’s what matters most anyway.

·      I’ve been going on walks with my SES buddy Michael most Fridays during lunch and we have the best time. He really could be my slightly younger and smarter brother and we just chat and complain about SES most days. It’s nice to have a friend here outside of work!

·      I’ve finished creating a change course for my university colleagues. It’s quite big, but built up of 20 modules, so they can pick and choose. Then I thought I might use those materials to update the Change Tools I run together with Deakin university and upgrade the materials a bit. They agreed to even pay me for it, so that’s my project for next week! I'm also getting a few new very active students, so that’s pretty cool too, to see it continue to grow.

·      Next weekend is Yumi’s common people dance project grand finale. She’s joined this dance group a few months ago and they’ve been practicing a routine that will see them compete with all sorts of other dance groups across Queensland. I think it will be hilarious with all the different skill levels, but at least everyone is having fun and that’s the whole reason she started, so I’ll clap extra loud and cheer her own. 😊

That’s it for this time, you’re all caught up. Stay warm for the remainder of winter and try to get some sunshine when it’s out and about.

Be well, speak soon,

Gilbert

 Dash supervising cake making at Michael’s house. Total focus!

 

Dash helping Yumi organise the greyhounds.

 

Totally exhausted from all the sleeping

 

So tired, need to sleep

Going for a walk in his rainbows and donuts jacket, looking great!

 

 

No one is more excited and ready to go on a walk than Dash!

 

I wasn’t exagerrating when I said it was a really big cockattoo!