Stephen Fookes - The end of another era in wool

L to R: Phil Cranswick, Duane Knowles (new CEO), BvR and Stephen Fookes.

As some readers of this blog will know, today is Stephen’s last official day as CEO of NZWTA. Stephen has held this position since the inception of NZWTA, and is also a well known and respected figure in the wool industry. We want to wish you well and hope retirement is everything you wished it would be, and more. I am sure it’s more a case of “see you later” than “farewell”. Enjoy the new phase of your life and career.

Tomorrow also marks Eugene’s first birthday. He today started saying his first word (“ta”), and can now also walk up to 3 metres all by himself. Such a big boy! He has also started playing peek-a-boo, and knows how to wave goodbye and blow kisses. Too cute! I will post pictures tomorrow.

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Other than this the main other item to mention is the weather. It has been hot in Sydney, with a max of 36 expected next week. Ouch! Bring on the cooler weather!!


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Home - Trying to make do with the Canon where an X-Pan is needed...

Two views of our apartment with the pool in the foreground. These pictures are stitched from 3 seperate images and then cropped to a ratio of 6:17.

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Dreams of Linhof, CS3 and D700's

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The Crossweb spider; a common sight in Sydney.

Karla at Palm Beach with some stormy weather in the background.

Another view of the same, strange storm clouds.

Eugene helping to take down the Xmas tree today...

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Xmas Day 2008 - Sydney

Luckily it was not nearly as hot as it has been in the past. As a matter of fact, December has been decidedly cooler than the last two year (either that or we've aclimatized).

We started the day with the kids opening pressies, then went to church and finished the day with a Braai at Werner's new place. We cooked some chops and boerewors on two seperate Weber's. On the one we also placed some Hickory wood chips. The cheese-filled Boerewors went onto the Weber with the wood-chips; mmmm!

Werner bought an put-up this 6m wide gazebo, which worked well. We had some Savanna Light on-ice (below), just in case the heat got too much.

Karla and Eugene both had a lovely day playing all over the place. Eugene even took a 2 hour nap to give Mum and Dad a break; such a good boy!

Karla was her usual self (boucing and running all over the place) and also had a fun day.

Just before we got into the "tucker".

The joys of fatherhood - Toy assembly...

Karin and Colin having a bit of fun.

It was also nice to see Rudolph, Marie-Louise and their daughter Cari (above) again.

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