We had planned a holiday to New York and New Orleans, but damn, those airfares were expensive! Impetuously we decided to go to India, in midsummer. Wow, hot! We focused on Kashmir as it’s the coolest in summer, but it was still pretty relentlessly dry and hot, not to mention the altitude, and Chris developed a respiratory infection from the dust. We still got some pretty cool photos though, check them here. Did I mention the altitude? The only relief that Chris got from vertigo while travelling over the highest roads in the world was to take lots of videos – you can see some of them here.
Sam is still plugging away at his fairly boring engineering job – somehow he had to get the money together for he and Leisa to visit Vietnam. Leisa was struck with the travellers’ curse, and got a nasty respiratory infection while they were away. I think they managed to avoid food poisoning though. Leisa has graduated from her textile design course and has a job in a textile printery, where they pay her almost nothing because creative people like doing it for free, don’t they? Maybe Sam and Leisa will finally realise their dream of opening a café, where they can work 24/7 doing fairly menial work, because cooking is the new rock and roll!
Dan is over his job too, doing art for a video game company in NZ, their corporate values are not to his liking. So he has quit, and is currently unemployed – well, except for working for nothing on his indie game project (because creative people like doing it for free, don’t they?). The game has done quite well at a recent expo in Melbourne though …
Chris and I did have our exhibition planned for this year, in June coinciding with Chris’s 65th birthday, combining lots of the photos we have taken in remote (and less remote) places, with books, book pages and … some other stuff we found. Didn’t sell much, but that’s because creative people like doing it for free, don’t they? You can see the exhibition here and here.
While on long-service leave this December, we have been camping along the Victoria and NSW coast. The weather was terrible while we were in Geelong visiting Mark & Rosie, cleared up briefly while we were in Melbourne, rained again, cleared again … it only took 3 days for Chris to stop saying “Why are we camping? You know I hate camping!” and begin to enjoy himself just in time to come home. While we were away, an electrician who did some work on our meter box neglected to turn the power back on so … well, suffice to say that the fridge and freezer were quite empty for the first few days at home.
So, the long-service leave is really relaxing … NOT! What with packing up for camping, actually camping, coming home and getting organized for xmas, having Mandy and family visiting, my friend Sarah from France, letting out our airbnb studio, and Mum and Dad between xmas and new year I wonder how I ever have time for my job. Sadly, I do have to go back to work in February …
And by the way, don’t even mention politics!
Hope your year has been just as eventful ☺
With love
Belinda (and family) xx
Kashmir photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/belindaallen/sets/72157646176168782/
Chris’s videos: http://vimeo.com/christopherlawrie/videos
Leisa’s textiles website: http://www.creaturetextiles.com/
Dan’s indie game: http://frogshark.com/2014/11/swordy-pax-aus-press/
Our exhibition: https://belindaallen.wordpress.com/exhibitions/recovering-roots/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obPI1_zw8ik
Where we went camping: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-36.55724,147.751135,7z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!6m1!1szI0IwEw4owPs.khIaAwo0aSvE
Belinda web portfolio: http://belindaallen.wordpress.com/
Chris web portfolio: http://www.users.on.net/~designart/historyofsalt/index.htm
