counselling update

Having completed my Diploma of Counselling in January, I have been working on setting up a small counselling practice in the Mid Mountains. I managed by great good fortune to secure a room in a therapy centre in Lawson and have been busily joining professional associations, developing web sites and making preparations for advertising, securing insurance cover and so forth. There is a lot to do and a lot more to do before my tentative opening in April.

Today I finished my web page for Mid-Mountains Counselling, the name of my practice. It's a very simple affair and I am quietly pleased that I wasn't technically stumped much, though there were moments. A lot of counsellors have difficulty finding clients in private practice and so might I, though I truly hope that I can make a difference in the lives of some people. If I get the chance.

Tom seems to be enjoying school more now, after a week or so of not wanting to go. The turnabout appears to have been being made Assembly King. Quite an honour, I am lead to believe. So long as he is happy, I am too.

of wars and rumours of war

Australasia the continent has been assailed by fire, flood, cyclone and earthquake in recent months. Poor Christchurch has suffered it second major quake in 6 months, this the more deadly because of the time of day. The city is battered but not in ruins and is much the worse for wear. Many people are dead. So my heart goes out to New Zealand tonight and my prayers are with the trapped, the injured, the mourning, the rescuers and those who live in fear of what news or events may yet bring.

Nothing prepares us for disaster. Our modern lives are not built upon the certainty of calamity, but rather, its evasion. So when it comes, it's as if an unseen mountain has been suddenly dumped upon us, never mind that it was always on the grey periphery.

God bless Christchurch tonight.

changes

My son Tom starts school tomorrow. I guess that this is one of those transitional phases that parents and their children go through, and even though Tom has been attending pre-school since was three, this is a far more complete break.

When I first went to school at Rose Bay Public back in the sixties, schooling was quite a different proposition. I have only a fairly fleeting memory of that first year, though I remember the old, high-ceilinged rooms. Later on came the square exercise books with wide spaced blue lines, the stubby pencils, inkwells and scratchy red-stemmed nib-pens. Issued books and equipment came with the imposing seal of the Department of Education, which seemed to me like some exotic and ancient authority at the time. School wasn't a fun place and was never intended as such. Perhaps we were the last of the 'seen and not heard' cohort to go through the system.

The set-up at Hazelbrook is quite different. Much friendlier classrooms, individual learning programs and hi-tech white boards are just a few of the innovations. Gone is the ubiquitous stern preceptor, uniform rows of desks and ruler across the knuckles for looking up from one's book. Learning was once imposed - now it seems to be a little more wholistically based. All good, as far as I'm concerned.

So, while I am looking forward to getting more time to pursue self-directed projects this year, and to seeing my little boy in his over-sized uniform in the morning, it is still a little sad. And inevitably, I include one summer holiday snap, taken on the ferry to Rose Bay in early January this year. For Tom, a time before the deluge.