I never knew dad kept a diary. I spoke to Binky,  my step mum earlier this week, and was telling a bit about it, actually, she was telling me about how she was reading about some of their secret rendezvous. This is the part where I put my fingers in my ears, and saying ‘La, la, la ….’. But we had a good laugh.

I think about dad every day, ever time I have short quiet moment, he’s there. It’s just over a year since he passed away, and I’m still heart broken. He wasn’t ready to go, and Binky told me that some of his last words were, “All I want is five more years”. 5 years is a small request for a man who feared death.

I clearly remember the happy moments from childhood, wishing that they would last forever, but know that they wouldn’t. I knew that some day they would be gone. And because I knew that those moments were temporary, I appreciated much more, even back then.

I must remember to ask Binky if she can bring dad’s diary along, (and the hard drive with the many video’s that my half brother, Jamie has loaded). I’m hoping it can jog my memory of moments with my dad, and memories of him that are locked away in my brain somewhere. From the brain to the blog, would be the next step.

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, 8am and I’m lying in bed… Noah’s watching Tom and Jerry next to me on the iPad, and Llewellyn has jumped into the shower and Rikke is in Prague celebrating her 40th with girlfriends. Australia is in the Rugby world cup finals, and here in Denmark, there’s no hope in hell that I can watch the match. There’s the snap shot of this moment in time, a moment that would otherwise be forgotten in a couple of days.

Time to keep track of time again, and put pay attention to this blog… My dairy that the kids and grandkids can read about, when I’m no longer around to tell them about these ‘Good old days’.

Sunday morning sleepin, with a guest, without the one I normally wake up with.

Photo Journal 2008

This is it…

Last night we had a relatively late one, down at the local beach club. I can’t imagine more perfect way to spend a summer afternoon. The water was a sensational 22 degrees, the kids found other kids to swim, run around in the sand and just generally goof off with.

2008 just didn’t kick off with a positive “bang”, starting with losing an Aunty (Mama Julie) then having a break in half way through January. Now that nearly everything has been replaced, I feel that I can start the year now, with more than my quota of bad karma out of the way. By the way, if you don’t have home contents insurance… I’d recommend you arrange it asap. It certainly takes some of the sting out of the pain.

So with the new and ever so slightly improved digital SLR, one of my creative passions is being release again (Hoo freakin’ ray!). At the beach club yesterday, I caught the magic hour and a few snaps of Noah and Gab, my good friend Fabian’s 5 year old son.

Until the new camera arrives, I go through life watching the world go by, and thinking, “Gee, that would make a great shot….”.

Australian media almost shot 16 year old Corey Delaney to fame with the coverage of his party that got a bit out of hand. I couldn’t believe this interview was aired, as Corey almost makes a fool out of A Current Affair.
He’s now had numerous other TV interview, radio and splashed over just about every tabloid over the infamous party.
Maybe this kid does have a future in event organising?

Heres a good collection of links on the news.com.au site

Rikke came home early from work to find herself disturbing an intruder in the process of ransacking our home. She even communicated with him when she asked through the broken glass on the door “Is anybody there?”. She thought I had done something to break the glass on the front door. The horrific shock came for Rikke, when the door opened and a reply came “No, there’s no one here”, then slamming in her face.

An immediate a quick dash to the neighbours followed and a call to the police, but alas the theif(ves) made a get away with computers, cameras, jewellery, some music equipment and more. The police response was relatively swift, but the chase was futile. Some half dozen patrol cars were deployed, a sniffer dog followed by forensics for fingerprinting. It is break-in season, with one of the officers telling me that there are around a dozen breakins a day in their area alone.

The scenario has run through my mind a hundred times, 16 hours since the incident. What if Rikke had taken the usual back door to come in, (After depositing junk mail in the recycle bin in the back yard). She would have had a full frontal run in with the intruder, with no physical barriers between them. The intruder was a man of large stature, and most likely under the influence of a drug addiction, and a physical contest would have been quickly decided.

From Rikke’s point of view, she did not know where I or our daughter was. I had left the mobile (Now stolen) at home as I was on school holiday duty with our daughter and a few other kids at the movies. Our 11:30am session was full so we defferred to the 1:30pm session. Without a phone, I didn’t get to communicate to Rikke the changes, so from her side one of the potential scenarios at the time was that both me and my daughter were in the apartment with the intruder.

Apart from some of the photos, and the odd file, everything is replacable. And for that matter there are still opportunities to take more photos, and recreate some of the files. With facilities like Gmail and Foxmarks, I had email and all bookmarks as if it were on my laptop, set up within 5 minutes.

Through this unfortunate incident, we are still incredibly lucky that none of us was harmed or killed for that matter, both are possible outcomes. We just need to rebuild our environment, replace our belongings and help Rikke through the trauma of her experience.

I just have to remind myself again how fortunate we are.

I have been missing you heaps whilst you have been away in Denmark for Christmas and New Year. In your absence, I had to cut a few corners… including facial hair. As I don’t give you a huge shock at the airport, please see the below photo. Let me know if you want me to loose the face fluff before we are reunited.

Love,

jom

Click on the below image link to read a bit more about the work in progress.

December has been a busy month. With Rikke and the kids leaving me at “Home Alone” over the Christmas and New Year break, December became a bit more manic. To also top things off things are that much more manic with an 18month old who just isn’t sure what will make him happy.

With Rikke and the Kids away, I’ve had time to catch up on a few things (Including adding to this blog site), as well as planning for 2008. For the family, its another busy year almost over. Llewellyn got an impressive school report (Still don’t know where she gets the brains from), and Noah has earn’t himself a new nickname, “The Noise”. There is definately a difference between the girls and boys at this age, and some of those cliche’s ring true. Basically in our experience we can now say that the girls do develop a lot quicker at the 18month stage than the boys.

December has been a bit of a “music” revival for me, with working with artist Tavoi again (on live audio), launching the Music Producers Forum (First meeting was on 4 December) and singing for the 70′s R&B band, the Loungephonics, who are a bunch of “cats” who have been studying at the Conservatorium of music. Also, young R&B artist Calvin and “Entourage” came around for a quick catch up and loose rehearsal. We’ll be working on some projects with this young man, stay tuned. It looks like the music business will keep me a bit busier in 2008.

Anyway, due to Christmas festivities, I’ve eaten a bit too much over the last couple of days, so I will get that mountain bike out and terrorist the local motorists.

I wish you all a fantastic New Year, and may 2008 be successful year for all.

Jomar