For Ceridwen 2004 was an incredibly busy year, particularly at work.  Mid year I relieved in a management position, (Clinical Senior Pharmacist, while still doing the assignment marking for the university Practitioner Teacher position). This involved many long evenings at work.  In June interviews were held to fill the position permanently and I was selected.  This promotion means I am responsible for ward services, staff training and education, and rostering. It has lengthened the working day and takes more of my energy. But as I am now settled into the position, I feel more in control. 

2004 was a  good year for pharmacy inspiration; I managed to get to four conferences, two of which were sheer pleasure as I had no part in organising or presenting! 

Another plus was the purchase of an up to date Personal Digital Assistant. This is an invaluable tool for a pharmacist, that can be loaded with several pharmacapoeias, a medical text or two, plus any documents that you need to refer to regularly. The kids have also enjoyed playing games on it!

After a nasty ‘flu in winter I experienced my first acute asthma attack ( at my age!). I was also quite ill for a couple of weeks when a tooth which was cracked in childhood finally met its end in a nasty abscess. 

In late 2004 Adele and I attended a very entertaining talk by the author Terry Pratchett, in connection with the release of his book, 'Going Postal' and had our hardback copies of it and 'Night Watch' signed by him.

The Midson Rd Bushcare site has grown up enormously in a year; the Sydney wattles put in as tubestock at the planting day last year are now up to 2 metres high. 

The vines I planted have grown well along the verandah, doing a good job of 'softening' the rather harsh lines of our mid '60s house. The garden is looking much happier since we have had a bit of rain. We are still surrounded by wildlife; there are ring-tailed possums sleeping in our wall cavities during the day, water dragons and an increasing number of wild ducks around the wetlands of the creek.

In 2005 I continued to work too hard and too long at the hospital. Consequently the garden and Bushcare site have had less attention. However native plants survive neglect, and have thrived on the rain in late 2005. The weed problems in the Bushcare site are fortunately diminishing with time, as the native ground covers spread. The drought had made vegie growing too hard, but a smaller area of vegie patch has been revived this year, with harvests of lettuce, rocket, herbs, vine leaves, and tomatoes, chillies  and citrus to come.

There have been quite a few weekends away from home at conferences in Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as the family holiday at Timbertown near Wauchope.

During that trip we also visited some nice beaches and lookouts on the mid North coast.

At this lookout, (the kids refused to get out of the car!) we met a couple of backpackers who were walking along the beaches from Brisbane to Newcastle.

The kids, of course, couldn't wait to get back home to their computers!

 It was fun to get away for a few days with the whole family, even if we didn't get much sleep, due to us all laughing hysterically at everyone's bad jokes till after 2am!