A round of Catch Up

After several years off writing, I'm about to start a new blog. Before I do though, I think a quick round of Catch Up is in order.

After I finished my trip around the big island, I had a quiet few months in Tasmania. This time was spent preparing for an Australian basketball training camp in January and to leave for a year of ag college only a few days later...

My year at Marcus Oldham, studying for a diploma in Horse Business Management was both challenging and incredibly rewarding. I had enrolled not knowing if I would even be able to complete enough of the course components to graduate with the full diploma. By the start of the school year I had been awarded a scholarship, which went a ways towards paying for my year. I cannot speak highly enough of my experiences at Marcus. We have regular classroom classes, but we also had many practical lessons, including breaking in horses, farriery, handling mares and foals and many, many other lessons. For me, it allowed me to be involved in a world I had found inaccessible since my accident. I was expected to participate in 'stable duties', which involved getting up before breakfast one of every three weeks, to make sure the stables were cleaned and kept in good order. While part of me found this difficult, I loved being 'back'.
 

Fariery classes

I had three work placements throughout the year. One of these was an office placement, learning about breeding matches,but the other two were on thoroughbred studs. Again, I was spending time mucking out boxes and cleaning water buckets, jobs that made me feel completely at home. I was also spending time with vets and seeing all sorts of other things, but I loved the manual labour component. The class also had two study tours throughout the year, one to the Hunter Valley and the other to New Zealand. They were both amazing.
All in all, I had a fantastic year. I was challenged. Marcus was challenged. I learnt so much it fills a shelf on my bookcase. And after their worries before I started, I graduated second in my class!

I came home from Marcus in December 2013. This turned out to be a HUGE month for me! Throughout the year I had been looking at several different properties around home. There was one that came up near my parents and my offer for it was accepted the day I made it! So I had 232 acres and a 3 bedroom house to my name. At the same time, I got a position assisting with the running of the 2014 Devonport cup, so for a month, I was travelling to Devonport every week day. And while all this was going on, there was one final big change going on. His name is Tim. Over the next few months we were busy getting things sorted on the farm and with Tim moving in with me at Mums. By the middle of the year we were flat out renovating the house, ready to move in, as Mum and Dad headed over seas for 6 weeks and we took over the running of their new business and care of my youngest brother. They were back just in time for our engagement party/housewarming, where we hosted 150 people at our house for a spit roast!

The new farm!

A few months later half of them were back for Christmas lunch, only 9 days before we got married. I had wanted a summer wedding, since I feel the cold badly. Well, at 36 degrees, we got the hottest day of the summer! We had an amazing day and apart from the heat, it all went off without a hitch!

The beautiful bridal party

Our family and friends

Over the past 12 months, I have been working part time as a disability support worker, filling in the rest of my time with helping out with the house and farm and making up for being such a lousy friend to so many people the past few years.
I have also been back playing basketball this year with the Kilsyth Cobras. They are an amazing group of girls and we had a great year, completing the season undefeated and coming home with the premiership! Can't do much better than that!

Go Cobras!

So now, it's almost time for the next adventure. Watch this space!