After a whirlwind Christmas and New Year, we are starting to pack up things at Talbot to head home.

Official leave date is 21st January but Mike is very keen to have everything in place to leave next Friday…. I just see that as 3 less days to have the house ready! We will be home for a few weeks and then all being well (ie, Ashley’s passport coming thru) we will be off to Project Walk in the first or second week of Feb. The wonderful Anthony is looking at organising a big fundraising dinner when we get back at which hopefully Mike will be able to show off some new skills.

No posts recently because I have been attempting to get a passport for Ash which with a dad who can’t sign and a mum who was born in a remote village in Fiji and does not have a birth certificate has been proving challenging!!! I think the guys at our local post office deserve a medal in patience!! Hopefully the 4th attempt is sufficient and it will go thru OK this time! I have already told Mike that if it doesn’t he is off to the states himself!!

On the weekend we were able to establish that Mike definitely did not incur a brain injury as part of his accident. Being a nice day and all, we went for a ride with Chris and Jules and their little girl. Plan A was to try to get to North Point Cafe and the park there ….. we got there, the girls jumped off the bikes and we went off to play in the park – Mike looked at Degeers and they went off for a further spin to Brighton Baths – he came back puffing and blowing so obviously some effort was put in. THe 10km ride completely wiped him out and landed him in bed with light-headedness for the rest of the day which only served to prove that he is just as stupid when it comes to pushing himself as he was before the accident so tick – no brain injury! Thankfully there is no clock on my mountain bike so I have no idea how fast he was going but it was an OK pace for Jules and I to ride with kids on board, so it was faster than I had expected.

The ride was great and we will look at setting up a last Sunday in month type arrangement where who-ever is around can come for a spin. Initially probably just along the beach path to a park or cafe but over time we will start trying new bike paths.

Hope to see as many of you as possible before we head off in early Feb.

Finally, the wonderful folk at Supersprint are letting us do a raffle and some fundraising up at their Great Ocean and Otway classic ride. It is a 145km ride from Torquay, with a 65km support event on 28th March. We are expecting to be back from the states are are planning to get Mike down there …. was hoping they might run a 10km support event!! Log on to the supersprint website if you want more details or to enter – I just wish I was fit enough to contemplate it! Even if you don’t want to ride it, we will need some volunteers to help sell raffle tickets so think about heading down.