Visiting Home

Thursday 4th March - Friday 12th March

Thursday: After a few more days in Ballarat, spent mostly catching up with people, saying goodbyes and preparing to travel again, it was finally time to leave. We packed up the camper and began our journey onto the next destination. We were planning for this to be Lakes Entrance however we got a phone call that very quickly changed that. My brother and his wife who were expecting to have a baby in about two weeks had decided to induce the baby due to some complications with the pregnancy. I was going to become an uncle, a prospect which I was quite excited about. For this reason we decided to go back to Somerville first.

At this stage I was feeling sick, with a cold. We drove home only to have to stop five minutes away from our destination because the car had overheated. We made the last tiny little leg of the journey on the back of a tow truck. I should probably mention that we did one of those things that you know you just shouldn't do but you just don't think at the time. After the car started overheating we pulled over and had lunch to give the car a chance to cool down. After waiting 15-20 minutes I had the thought that maybe the car needed more water. I went to check and Sarah having heard the cars can spurt a bit of water suggested we put a cloth over it before we open it. I was having difficulty opening the water cap so Sarah had a go. It certainly opened or rather exploded everywhere. It was like a volcanic eruption of water and coolant as we ran away from the car as quickly as possible to a safe distance. Sarah got a little bit on her hand and although it stung it didn't leave any scolding. I had to improvise pulling the lid off one of my toolboxes to put water in it for Sarah to hold her hand in. The man from RACV was very kind and drove Sarah to the doctors where they gave her an ice-pack. I stayed with the car waiting for the tow truck. We are very grateful that neither of us got more seriously injured. My advice is: don't ever remove the water cap off a car that has just or recently overheated, just don't do it, it's stupid.

To end the day on a better note I got a call back from Wes Jay who I had sent my CD to. He said that it was great and that he had listened to it twice, which for someone as busy as Wes definitely means something. We proceeded to talk for close to an hour. He basically explained that he believed that I had enough musical training, songwriting ability and talent to make it as a professional musician. He said that I had a good voice but that he believed it could become much better and that he wanted me to get some high level lessons and focus on improving my voice. He exclaimed that he felt I was not ready yet for his level of promotion and that he wanted me to acquire more performance experience and learn to bring out myself in my music. He also said that I needed to work on my appearance. Not for self centered reasons but because the reality is that people will judge first on appearance and I shouldn't allow this become a stumbling block to people hearing the heart of what I have to say. Wes explained that if I can work on these things and improve that in a couple of years he would be interested in working with me. This is a massive encouragement to me and positive confirmation that I really could pursue a career as a professional musician, something that I had been seriously questioning for a while. I now feel that I have something to work to. I should explain that I will never be a career or money driven person, my life is committed to following God and loving others, but this has presented a whole new direction and forum for me to be able to do that.

Friday: At 2:30am Lila Kate Charlesworth was brought into the world. I have a little niece, daughter to my brother and it's the coolest thing ever. We went to the hospital and met her. She is so small and so cute. I really hope I can be a good uncle. Both parents and baby are healthy and it is wonderful the two doting parents care for their baby like they are long time naturals.

Sunday: We went to church this morning at St. Andrews. It was good to be at our home church seeing familiar faces. We were even lucky enough to back on the Sunday when some good friends of ours were having their baby baptised. We got up later in the service and shared some of what we had been doing in our time in Ballarat. After the service we had many conversations with friends as there was much to tell and much to catch up on.

Monday - Thursday: I spent most of this time catching up with friends and family, getting the car fixed and attempting to recover from my cold. We have come to realize that in future when we come back we definitely need to allow for two weeks as one week is nowhere enough time to catch up with all the people we want to see.

Sarah has spent most of this time working really hard at her new job. She is still in the mentoring process however it is going really well. Most of the issues she is coming across are specific formatting requirements directly related to the company she is working for. Otherwise it’s mostly computer related issues. It will be great when Sarah can be paid for her work.

We are both exited about getting back on the road and seeing what lies ahead on the journey.