“Minister, thanks for joining us. This week you released a new initiative you are calling The Red Thing.”

“That’s right David. This is yet another bold and excellent initiative of this government. We’re immensely proud to have delivered The Red Thing for the benefit of all Australians.”

“Why is it blue?”

“It’s a red thing, David.”

“Minister, we’ve examined it closely. We’ve asked experts for their analysis. It is unquestionably blue.”

“David, I can’t speak for the competence of your experts, but I can assure you that this is a red thing.”

“But Minister, look at it. Right there in front of you. It is blue.”

​“What you are displaying here, David, is a lack of proper understanding. You need to look beyond the veneer. Underneath what you erroneously call it’s apparent blueness this is, fundamentally and without ambiguity, a red thing.  Thanks for allowing me to clear that up.”

​Most police officers entering into retirement have found their Snark to be a Boojum.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  There is something to be said for softly and suddenly vanishing away.  Organisations evolve relentlessly and leave all contributors, even the most significant of them, in their wake.  If cricket can move past Don Bradman, then policing - well, you get the analogy...
The trick to softly and suddenly vanishing away is, however, a pathway laden with hazards as fearful as Lewis Carroll's Bandersnatch; even more perilous than the JubJub.  It is a journey requiring; in fact, demanding, significant forethought and planning.  Of course, almost all retiring professionals will arrive at this realisation; but many of them do so too late.

​​Our profession, the profession of policing, is an immersive one.  We take it home with us; and to parties.  It comes in phone calls and emails when we are not at work.  It gets between us and those we love.  It comes in insomnia.  It comes on our holidays with us.  It appears suddenly in the places we thought we went to escape it.  If we are not careful, it consumes us.  We need to be careful because, if we allow ourselves to be consumed by it - if policing becomes our identity - then, when we are no longer police, what remains?

​Of course, at the beginning of our careers, when we are young and strong and can leap tall buildings in a single bound, none of this matters.  Except it does.  We are the frogs in the heated pot, and we need to be conscious of the water temperature rising around us.  There are two alternative certainties: we will learn to cope, or we will fall over.  Coping, therefore, is good.  However, it is a learned skill, and all of us learn in differing degrees, at different speeds, and by different methods.  But teaching ourselves how to cope is an important and necessary thing, and it is is beyond dispute that having some deliberate strategies to guide us is much preferred to a reliance on good luck and a fair breeze.

​Don't be that Captain.
Have a sensible map; a realistic plan.  Some reference points are handy.
Many of us commence our vocational journey without that plan (or, if you like, possessed of a map with no markings).  We have no conception of the shape or direction of our career other than, perhaps, a careless awareness of the absence of any such direction.  And often there is comfort in drifting with the current and breeze.  But all of us, even those who enter the profession with clear and unambiguous plans for their journey, can discover that a life in policing will take us in unexpected and, on occasions, inexplicable directions.​

​Trust me; in 40 years of policing, I have seen examples of such navigational absurdity.  So a plan is great, but not foolproof.  Plans don't always go according to - well, you know.  What does one do when the plan fails?  When we are being tossed about in the tempest, how is control regained?  
You might begin by discovering - and it is a journey of discovery - who you are.  Not name, rank and payroll ID number, but what is at the core of your being.  Who are you?  Where do you belong?  What makes you happy?  Are you the winger with no left foot but a liking for tall stories in the bar after the game?  Are you the only member of the choir with the vocal range required for the Hallelujah Chorus?  Are you a favourite uncle / aunt?  Ratbag cousin?  Are you the most predictable non-winner in the tipping competition?  
Where do you belong?  And, most importantly: who is there for you when work is not?  
When you make that discovery, never let it go.  To do your job well, you do not have to neglect that aspect of yourself.  In fact, to continue to do your job well is almost impossible without that aspect of yourself.  Nurture and develop your self as if it is your most precious possession.  Because it is. ​

​Having found your self, and having discovered your place, you always have safe harbour to which to return.  Which provides confidence, and great comfort, for a person who subjects themselves to the tumultuous forces of a career in policing.  This job will offer you a profusion of possibilities, and for every single one of them, there are further multitudes of uncertainties.  
If all goes according to plan, my own journey in this profession will end on my 58th birthday, having spent 40 and one half of those years as a police officer.  Can anyone doubt that the 58 year old me would be a very different person if the 17 year old me had made a different career decision?  This profession has shaped me into the person I will be when I leave it and go out into the world.  Whether that is a positive or negative result is a judgement for time and for others, but here is the crucial point:  if a career in policing is going to alter the person you are, then should you not do everything in your power to observe and control that process?

​​I'm pleased to be retiring.  Not because I dislike this career, nor because I have tired of my colleagues.  I'm just ready to embrace the opportunity to live a hundred percent of my life as the person I now know myself to be.  Like any veteran police officer, I have seen my share of stuff, and not all of it has been disheartening.  In dealing with situations that bring the worst to people, we often see them at their best:  spirited; stoic; generous; strong; determined.  And of course, in dealing with those situations we, as police, form our own bonds of fellowship with each other.  I've been supported, nurtured and reinforced in that fellowship.  Of the countless people I have worked alongside over four decades, I could count on the tines of a cocktail fork the ones I found it hard to like.  And even they taught me things!  
So, thank you Tasmania Police, for taking the teenage me and shaping him into something which I hope is not a complete bastard.  Thanks for teaching me about life.  Thanks also for equipping me, at least in part, to bring the three finest young adults I know into this world.  
Thanks to this island. If you are going to be police, this place is a good place to do it. 
Thanks to the villains, victims, bystanders, collaborators and magistrates who played their role in my pageant.  Thanks to my mentors; and to those who at least pretended to heed my (too often not) occasional advice.  
Above all else, thanks to those who love me (others might doubt their existence, but I know who they are!) for giving me a retreat, and a mirror.  And here, primarily, I mean my wife, Michelle.  A now retired mentor of mine reminded me recently of the toll this job takes on personal relationships; of the countless hours of not being present for Christmases, New Years, school holidays, weekends, presentation nights, public holidays, birthdays and anniversaries.  My mentor asks, "What bastard would do that to his family?".  Well, I was one of the many to do so.  Through all those absences, including the ones where I was physically present but otherwise absent, Michelle carried on stoically, and often alone.  I wrote above about the importance of knowing where you belong.  She is where I belong.
I'm stepping out the door with a smile on my face and a sack full of plans.  Four decades after accidentally starting an unplanned journey, I can sense that the Snark is nearby - so close, in fact, that I think I can distinguish its features ...  

About 5 years ago I decided that, if I didn't start, it would never happen - so I dug a big hole in the back yard.  It stayed that way for several years.  Then, in November 2018, I was again spurred to action and a slab was poured.  Over the course of the following 12 months, with a massive amount of assistance from here, and about 2000 YouTube videos, the project gradually came together.  Here is a gallery of its development.

Introduction
It might be said that speculation; to form a theory (or hypothesis) without firm evidence, is the foundation of science. 
It may equally be said that speculation; to invest with a hope of gain but with the risk of loss, is the foundation of business.
The Dreamtime is speculation, as are the stories of the Bible, Torah and Quran.  Trade and agriculture are speculation.  Migration, mining, commerce and interplanetary travel are all speculation.
Raising a family is speculation.
Speculation leads to discovery, enlightenment and prosperity; but also to contempt and failure.
Stories of speculation are perpetual and unbounded.  This place is rich in them.
​

​The Origins of Earth
The peaks upon which Gould bestowed the names of the great 19th Century men of science are old – even in the brain-bending time scales of geology.  And yet, as old as those mountains are, the rocks from which they are formed are known to exceed the age of the mountains by at least a factor of two.
Some humans, themselves in an advanced position on the human timeline, may recall driving to Queenstown along roads of a curious pink colouration.  The rocks crushed to construct those roads, and which gave the roads their distinctive colour, are believed to have been formed during the Ectasian Period, over 1200 million years ago (or, as one geologist described the period: bang in the middle of the “boring billion”).  Indeed, those rocks are so old, and so inconsistent with most other rocks of continental Australia, to lead to conjecture that, in those early days of world geology, significant portions of what now forms the basis of western Tasmania was in fact linked to an area of ancient North America.
Then, 500 million years ago, the Early Cambrian tectonic plates began to agitate and to catch against each other like old and very badly shuffled playing cards, resulting in a significant mountain-building event known as the Tyennan Orogeny.  This was, effectively, the geological equivalent of a multi-car crash on a busy roundabout - except the impact which caused this particular pile up occurred over a period of approximately 60 million years.  Firstly, in the Early Cambrian, an oceanic plate pushed up against eastern Australia, shuffling a layer of oceanic crust over the existing Precambrian rock base.  The resulting massive forces created a volcanic subduction zone, and shifted the base beds of Tasmania to the west and south.
Continuing tectonic plate pressure from the north resulted in a north-south compression of the oceanic base beds of the newly formed region we now know as Tasmania, and a corresponding east-west extension.  The extension, or spreading, of submarine plates can result in an event which geologists call a back-arc basin.  In this case, the location of the back-arc basin was below the western margin of the island we now call Tasmania.  The resultant north-south trough of about several hundred kilometres, which formed along the basin, is known as the Dundas Trough. 
Over time, seawater in the unconsolidated and rapidly filling volcanic basin had access to metals in the volcanic “pile” and also access to heat.  The seawater in the basin sunk, engaged with the the metals, heated, and rose to the newly formed sea floor where it spewed out mostly as seafloor volcanoes, called fumaroles.  In this way, the Dundas Trough filled with masses of diverse volcanic material which then became mineralised by circulating fluids.  This build up of diverse mineralisation in the Dundas Trough is known by geologists as the Mount Read Volcanics.
During the Middle-Late Cambrian, ongoing plate movement associated with the Tyennan Orogeny created further uplift of the original sediments, and also the newer, mineral rich deposits from the Dundas Trough, thrusting those deposits and the pink-hued conglomerate upwards into the beginnings of the terrain which Gould much later named after the 19th Century scientists, theologians and philosophers.
The results of the Tyennan Orogeny, 60 million years’ worth of pressure, eruption, obduction, sedimentation, folding, inversion, compression, extension, erosion, and re-folding, resulted in a complex and diverse geology, and the placement along the West Coast of Tasmania of substantial deposits of minerals and ores which would later become the catalyst for great human endeavour and enterprise.

Introduction
It might be said that speculation; to form a theory (or hypothesis) without firm evidence, is the foundation of science. 
It may equally be said that speculation; to invest with a hope of gain but with the risk of loss, is the foundation of business.
The Dreamtime is speculation, as are the stories of the Bible, Torah and Quran.  Trade and agriculture are speculation.  Migration, mining, commerce and interplanetary travel are all speculation.
Raising a family is speculation.
Speculation leads to discovery, enlightenment and prosperity; but also to contempt and failure.
Stories of speculation are perpetual and unbounded.  This place is rich in them.

​The Origins of Man
At the end of June in 1860, the cream of 19th Century British scientists, philosophers, and theologians, together with many journalists and vast numbers of the public, gathered at Oxford for a three day meeting of the British Association.  Indeed, the meeting was so well attended that the planned venue had to be abandoned for the larger capacity of the great library of the Museum.  A primary item of discussion, that which had stirred such great interest in the meeting, was the controversial work of Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, which had been published seven months earlier in London. 
Those in attendance included Sir Joseph Hooker, Sir Charles Lyell, Reverend William Whewell, Reverend Adam Sedgewick, Professor Richard Owen, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Dr Charles Daubeny, and Sir Michael Foster, but the event achieved international notoriety due to a reported exchange between the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, and Thomas Henry Huxley.  Wilberforce had the floor and was stating an argument in opposition to Darwin’s theories of evolution when he is reported to have turned to Huxley, a known advocate of Darwin’s theories, and asked him:

Huxley's retort was reported as:

​The actual words spoken in the exchange remain in doubt, but the nature of the exchange was seismic, particularly in large sections of the academic and scientific community who were only too familiar with conforming to the dictates of the Church about the conclusions they were permitted to reach.  Huxley had stood up against the Church for the autonomy of science. 
Darwin’s work was threatening to breach the bulwark of Western Christian orthodoxy.  Could the Church be fallible?  Might man be simply the product of a natural evolutionary process and not the pinnacle of God’s plan? Huxley’s challenge amounted to open resistance to the authority of the Church.  It signalled that the new theories would not be crushed by ridicule, but laid out for considered analysis.  The shockwaves associated with the publication of On the Origin of Species were spreading rapidly and widely.
Twenty months after that meeting of the British Association at Oxford, Charles Gould found himself in a previously unrecorded valley in Western Tasmania.  Gould was a 28 year old English geologist, engaged by the Tasmanian Government to conduct a geological survey of the island.  Gould almost certainly had the great philosophical questions about science and religion in the forefront of his mind as he looked to the west along that valley.  He later recorded in his journal:

​In the following days, Gould recorded and named the peak we now know as Mount Sedgewick after the Reverend Adam Sedgewick, a former president of the British Geological Society and an opponent of Darwin’s theories, although he remained friendly with Darwin for the remainder of his life. 
In subsequent years, nearby peaks were named for Thomas Huxley, John Tyndall (a geologist and associate of Huxley), Darwin himself, and Joseph Jukes (a geologist and former student of Professor Sedgewick).  Whilst no official record of the origins of this nomenclature remains, Gould is considered to be the person most likely for bestowing the names.
We now know, of course, that humans had been coming to these mountains long before Gould.  The original inhabitants of this island almost certainly sat atop these peaks and wondered at the origins and spirit of the land.  It is fitting therefore that the European nomenclature of the mountains was born in some of the great philosophical questions:  what are the origins of man?  Is life on Earth the result of a series of coincidences and accidents, or the gift of a Creator?  Can religion and science co-exist?
It is also fitting, given that the nomenclature also reflects the discipline of geology, that we consider how these mountains came to be here.

Shakespeare?!The History Plays!?
You can't be serious?!
I am.  Write about that which you love, they say.  Well, I just love these plays.  They were, to the playhouse patrons of Elizabethan and Jacobean London, the HBO and Netflix dramas  of their day. They were, first and foremost, commercial works, aimed to generate a profit. They were fictionalised dramas; adopting themes, developing characters, and scripted carefully to entertain, provoke and manipulate their audiences. And, loosely - very loosely - they were based on the origins and consequences of the conflict between the Houses of Lancaster and York.
And so, if we imagine that boxed-sets were available at the 17th Century Globe Theatre, the back wrapper may have read something like this:
King Richard II is an indecisive, self-centred, adult-child, who ascended the throne at the age of ten.  Feted by the Court since childhood, Richard has grown to adulthood with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, and no concept of self-discipline.  A disappointment to the great promise of his lineage, Richard has surrounded himself by sycophants, and squandered his personal wealth, leading to increased taxes on his subjects.  He is resented by the commons, and disrespected by the nobility.
When Richard's powerful and wealthy uncle, John the Duke of Lancaster, (John of Gaunt), dies, Richard seizes Gaunt's immense wealth for himself.  Gaunt's eldest son and heir, Henry Bolingbroke, already harbours reason for enmity towards the King.  Bolingbroke had been banished from England by the King prior to his father's death.  And now, driven by that enmity and a strong sense of injustice, he plans to return to England and claim back his rightful inheritance.  
Bolingbroke is everything Richard is not.  He is greatly admired by the commons, and deeply respected by the nobility.  And Bolingbroke, being also directly descended from Edward III, has a claim to the throne.
Bolingbroke's original intent, to simply claim back his Dukedom, is tested by the despair with which he views Richard's England, and also by Bolingbroke's immense popularity with Richard's subjects.  He claims his Dukedom - and then the throne; usurping Richard and ascending as King Henry IV.
Although popularly acclaimed as King, divisions and resentment remain in the Kingdom, and Richard's death has not only stained Henry's reputation, but eroded his own certainty in his divine right as King.  Meanwhile, King Henry's eldest son, Prince Hal, has a reputation as a wastrel and an associate of men of disrepute, most particularly the scoundrel, John Falstaff.  Upon who does Prince Hal model himself:  his father the King, or his de-facto father, Falstaff?
Dissension turns to rebellion in the north, and Henry is challenged by the Duke of Northumberland and his son, Henry Percy (Hotspur).  King Henry openly bemoans the cruel fate which sees Northumberland blessed with such a heroic and worthy son as Hotspur, while the King sees "riot and dishonour stain the brow" of his young Harry.  Prince Hal and Hotspur meet in battle at Shrewsbury, where Hotspur is slain.  King Henry IV retains his kingdom, but loses his health, and goes to his death doubting the capacity of his heir, Prince Hal - now King Henry V.  Falstaff, expecting great favour from the new King, is coldly rebuffed by his now regal former associate:  "I know thee not, old man ... Presume not that I am the thing I was".
And indeed, he is not.  King Henry V is the warrior King, who hammers the French into submission at Hafluer, before leading the exhausted and vastly out-numbered English forces in a famous speech,  and to a famous victory, against the French at Agincourt.  When he firmly establishes himself as the undisputed monarch of England and France, English supremacy seems assured.  Yet King Henry's reign is ended by illness at a young age, and the crown passes to his infant son, King Henry VI.
England, again, experiences a minority monarch, and the nobles jostle for dominance.  France seizes the opportunity to reassert its own sovereignty, assisted by the self-proclaimed agent of Heaven, Joan la Pucelle (Joan of Arc).  The loss of territory in France inflames the divisions in the English court, a situation perfectly described by Lord Exeter:  "'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands; But more when envy breeds unkind division; There comes the rain, there begins confusion."
The Duke of Suffolk, having seen the power wielded by the Lord Protector, Gloucester, plans to undo the Protector and seize control of the throne.  He does so by wooing Margaret of Anjou to adopt the roles of wife of King Henry, as well as mistress of Suffolk.  Thus, in his own words:  "Margaret shall now be queen, and rule the king; But I will rule both her, the king and realm."
Suffolk's manipulation of the King riles Richard, Duke of York, who openly proclaims his right to the throne; claiming that his direct lineage would be kings, but for the usurpation by King Henry's grandfather.  York is supported by the Earl of Warwick, "the Kingmaker", and thus the kingdom, again, falls into dissension and rebellion.  The weak King is coerced into formal recognition of Richard of York as his heir, effectively disinheriting the King's own son.  Queen Margaret is outraged, and spurs her supporters within the House of Lancaster into open civil war with the Yorkists.  When the forces of Queen Margaret cruelly taunt and murder Richard, Duke of York, the Yorkists are provoked to their own righteous outrage, and the die is cast in the fight for supremacy between the houses of Lancaster and York, now led by Richard's eldest son, Edward of York.  King Henry is captured and imprisoned in the Tower.  Margaret and her son, Prince Edward, flee to France.  The Yorkists prevail, and Edward of York succeeds as King Edward IV.
But Edward's hasty and secret marriage to Margaret Woodville causes dissension within his own house, most disastrously with Warwick, who hears of the marriage whilst in France negotiating the marriage of Edward to the sister of the French Queen.  So aggrieved is Warwick by this betrayal, that he abandons all allegiance to the House of York and swears to aid Queen Margaret in her quest to have her son recognised as the King of England.
Margaret, Warwick and Edward of Lancaster return to England to garner forces to overthrow King Edward IV.  At the Battle of Tewkesbury the future of the House of Lancaster is extinguished when Edward of York and his brothers, George, Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, take their revenge for the murder of their father by slaying Prince Edward of Lancaster before his mother's eyes.
York is victorious.  The winter of discontent is made summer.
But the evil and misshapen Richard, Duke of Gloucester, has clearly stated his ambition.  "I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown."  And so, King Edward IV is undermined by the duplicitous "support" of his younger brother.  When King Edward falls ill and dies, his teenage son is briefly proclaimed King Edward V, but before any coronation can be arranged, Gloucester, assisted by his "second self", The Duke of Buckingham, manages to discredit, murder or disappear all claimants between the throne and himself, finally emerging as King Richard III.
Once King Richard has achieved his ambition, his great affection and reliance for Buckingham is replaced by disdain.  Buckingham switches allegiance to Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, a direct descendent of John of Gaunt and claimant of the throne of England.  Meanwhile, Richard, in a bid to reinforce his royal credentials, poisons his wife and sets his sights on his niece, Elizabeth of York, the heir of the former King Edward.  But before the betrothal can be realised, rebellion boils over in the form of an invasion by Richmond.  They eventually meet in the Battle of Bosworth Field.  
The night before the battle, Richard is visited, and clearly distressed, by the ghosts of those who have died in his quest for the crown:  "Shadows tonight have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers".  
During the battle, King Richard is unhorsed, then slain by Richmond, who is subsequently crowned King Henry VII.  The first act of the new king is to proclaim a pardon to the defeated soldiers, declaring, "We will unite the white rose with the red: smile heaven upon this fair conjunction, that hath long frowned upon their enmity".

I had nothing at all to do with Mo coming to live with us.  Michelle and the girls headed off one Saturday 10 years ago, and returned with a black and white ball of fluff with an attitude and a white stripe across his backside.
“He came from Morris’ Road, so we’ve called him Mo.”
I feigned displeasure.  No-one believed it.  Not even me.
Toby, however, was most put out.
Toby - Toad, informally - was the faithful old family dog who was sighing and shuffling through his autumn years.  He reckoned he deserved some dignity and gravitas during that period.  Mo robbed him of that, but eventually brought an occasional spark of youth to his rheumy eyes, and a begrudging kind of companionship to his final days.  Toad’s inevitable departure was painful for us, but anticipated; and made much easier with the youthful, boundlessly energetic and idiotic presence of Mo to bring a smile to our faces.
Mo’s departure this week was, on the other hand, sudden, unexpected, and deeply saddening.
His time as part of our family brought us great happiness.  To each of us he granted the gift of unquestioning faithfulness and devotion.  He was the smartest idiot I’ve ever encountered, but his love for each of us was without bounds and expressed on every day he was with us.
He is greatly missed.

The jolly service-station proprietor with a grin like a split melon laughed collegiately as we told him our plans to walk amongst the Tamar River wineries over the next couple of days.  
“Reminds me of the time...” and he went on to tell us a yarn about he and his mate who received conditional domestic permission to go boating on the Tamar; the condition being that they brought home fish for dinner.  One particular day, after visiting plenty of their usual haunts (“We were rotten...”) they called into the place where the fish were obtained and, being largely unconscious of detail, acquired some fish which they placed in a bucket in the boat and took home to present as the day’s catch.  Our man beamed with pride when he revealed that the fish was pre-battered and their ruse had been discovered.  He wished us all the best with our excursion.
Rob and I got back in the car, looked at each other and both said, “Well, that’s wine-walking!”
We imposed ourselves with an early morning arrival at our selected accommodation, so early that we roused our host Kris out of his morning shower.  Kris, with generosity and hospitality of which we discovered he possessed great reserves, conveyed us to Beaconsfield from where, with the cooperation of the local bus service, we negotiated our way to the driveway of the Velo winery at Legana.  We donned our packs and ascended the driveway.  On arrival someone asked, ‘How far have you walked?” to which we replied, “About 130 metres so far.”
We brunched at Velo on a bacon, cheese and vegetable muffin which was served with a spectacular apricot chutney.  We then got down to business and sampled ten of their wines and a cider.  The highlight of the tasting was, for Rob, a tie between the 2012 Velo Riesling and the 2010 Reserve Pinot Noir.  My attention was taken by the 2008 Velo Cabernet Sauvignon, so much so that I had to re-calibrate my scoring scale!
We shouldered our packs and headed north on the West Tamar Highway, past the river-side Rosevears Drive.  This was a mistake.  The most direct route to Tamar Ridge Cellar Door was the one we took, but negotiating the shoulder of a busy highway for 5km was no fun.  We attempted to mitigate this by walking along a parallel side road for a while which we thought re-joined the highway.  It did not.  It took us into the vines of Strathlyn Winery and eventually to a point where we climbed up the side of a highway underpass and back into the traffic.

24 hours proved to be a remarkable difference at St Peter's Basilica.  We arrived at 07.20 and wandered straight up to the security point.  Apparently Sundays are immeasurably busier than Mondays. Who'd have ever thought that?!
It was worth the wait, and the previous effort.  Rob had earlier in the trip described the Louvre as the second-most impressive building he had seen - the Basilica being the first.  All those concepts I have mentioned in earlier posts about scale, grandeur, history and power apply (perhaps even more so) to this building.  Perhaps (and here is a possible theme for future adventures) I need to balance my perspective on these issues by visiting great triumphs of not-necessarily-Christian architecture such as the Hagia Sophia, Pyramids and Taj Mahal.
Perhaps ...
In the last day or so of our trip I have been feeling a sense of melancholy.  This is not unusual in itself; it happens to me every time we pack up the shack on Sunday mornings on the west coast of Tasmania.  This is different though.  In a purely self-focused sense, we have done something significant in taking this trip.  It has been, and will continue to be, a highlight in our lives as individuals, and our lives as a family unit.  Few families are as fortunate as we have been to make this happen.  There have been costs (apart from the obvious elephant in the middle of the room).  The girls have missed valuable school hours and we have abandoned many of our responsibilities at home, particularly to family, friends and pets.
We're each very much looking forward to going home and re-immersing ourselves in those relationships and responsibilities; and in many ways we are tired of travelling - yet there is a reluctance to let this major chapter in our lives close, primarily for fear that another chance may never come our way.
Moggy and I had hoped that this trip would allow Mollie and Ella to arrive home with renewed appreciation on two fronts:  an awareness of how large and varied the world might be, and a renewed appreciation and respect for the part of it we choose to live in.  Even though our experiences on this trip have been of the first-world only, I am confident we have gone a long way to achieving that first ambition.  The degree to which the second ambition is achieved is yet to reveal itself.
​Our last day overseas had threatened to be something of a trial; having to vacate our apartment at 8am and not departing Fiumicino airport until 10pm.  That's a long time to drag luggage around the cobblestones of Rome.  In an attempt to turn that day into a pleasant end to the trip we booked a hotel room at Lido di Ostia, which is a town on the edge of the Mediterranean and only 5km from the airport.
We arrived expecting Surfers Paradise.  What we discovered was in many ways akin to Indonesia.  Funny old place, really.  30 minutes from the centre of Rome and perched on the edge of the Mediterranean, it should be fabulous.  But it's not any more. The architecture suggests that it was a happening place in the 1920's and 30's, but these days it's just tired and shabby. Restaurants have been constructed on the beach side of the promenade, and they have been laid out in such a way that access to the beach is all but impossible except for a few easements about 800m apart from each other.  Each of the restaurants has a thatched-roofed faux "beach hut" in front of it, invariably called the "Havana Club" or the "Tropicano Beach Night Club", and blocking the view of the sea from the restaurant proper.
So we spent the day wandering the promenade, reading, eating tapas from Toros Don Pepe, hydrating and waiting for the taxi to Fiumicino, from where I type.  
Boarding commences in 15 minutes.
​Arivadierci Roma.  Farewell Europe