Back to July : apart from Bishop Michaels ’ s visit I went to the annual Yaraka gymkhana ( first weekend in the month so that boarders are home from school and able to compete ) catching up with families from down there and looking with wonder ( as I imagine you parents often must ) at the children and how they are growing up ! I had an excuse not to roll out a swag as there was the field day with Helen Everingham that Sunday at Lara wetlands . It took me a while to get my head around the idea of “ wetlands ” here ! True , there are water sports held at Lake Dunn though not for ages now ; I have photos of my trip there a couple of months ago : wheel tracks across the width of the ‘ lake ’! Anyway , Lara has become a popular place for caravaners and others and is a peaceful spot , accommodating a surprising number without their feeling crowded .
Still in July and for me and for the whole Marist family , there was a very special celebration . As you might recall , we Sisters usually come together for meetings and the celebration of Jubilees on the long weekend in June . This year however , the gatherings were postponed to coincide with celebrations marking 200 years since the initiation of what I will call the Marist project . I mentioned it in my last letter . We refer to this annual anniversary as “ Fourvière Day ” because on July 23rd 1816 our Founder and other young newly ordained priests including Marcellin Champagnat ( Marist Brothers ’ founder ) made a special pledge in the little chapel beside the Cathedral of Our Lady at Fourvière in France . In Sydney we had a packed Church for the special Mass with Marist priests , Sisters ( both groups ), Brothers , and laity : what our founder described as a many-branched tree ! It was very moving and joyful and included our recitation together of a statement of commitment based on the original pledge and adapted for our time . St . Joseph ’ s College , which some of you will know , is just a short walk away and it was the venue for a lovely meal , with several talks and story-telling to remember our forefathers and mothers and the challenge and inspiration they have been and continue to be for us today .
I arrived back in Barcy on July 26th and that Friday drove to Stonehenge joining the many people who had travelled there to support the Steedman family , in grieving , praying for and remembering Jock . My deepest sympathy especially to Cathy and Ray , as also to the Vinnecombe and Morton families at the deaths of David and Keith . I have found that there is a particular ache accompanying sudden death , as we try to grasp its reality and struggle with not having the opportunity to say goodbye and other things that we wish we had said earlier . May you all be comforted in the difficult months ahead . It ’ s a different kind of sadness I think , when death comes slowly and to the elderly , little by little . This was the way that Eleanor Fraser-Bourne left her family in July . Please be assured of my prayer for all of you .
It has been good to catch up with different ones on other trips to Blackall , Ilfracombe , Isisford and Longreach . On my last trip to Longreach , as well as calling in at a surprise early Birthday celebration ( congratulations Kaye : remember to keep the celebrations going at least until the real date !) I invested in a new phone . My trusty little flip-top phone was struggling to deliver more than a couple of text messages before having to be recharged . I had tried unsuccessfully at a Sanyo store in Sydney to buy a new battery , only to be told they are not producing that model anymore . When I asked the young salesman about a possible basic replacement , he led me to a display cabinet and showed me a touch phone costing somewhere in the vicinity of $ 170 . I tried to smile politely ( a funny kind of are-you-kidding-me smile ), thanking him as I said goodbye . There are moments in life when I am really reminded / confronted by the fact that I ‘ belong ’ to a different generation !
Anyway , a couple of weeks later in Longreach I did purchase a touch phone , settling for a $ 59 purchase . Talk about confrontation ! In the next three or four days , I wondered if I had made a big mistake . Should I count my losses , go back to my familiar phone and just keep recharging .? After all the main reason I had been using it was to send and receive text messages because of their immediacy and low cost ( pre-paid plan ). Well , to cut a long ( and frustrating ) story shorter , although there is still so much I don ’ t know about the capacity of the phone , I have a new Telstra plan giving me much more for the same cost . Thanks to patient instruction initially from Melanie Palmer and on several subsequent occasions from Janice O ’ Dell ( Joey ’ s school secretary ) I know some of the icons to touch and mostly contact the right person !
Cath arrived here in Barcy on Thursday , August 11th and on Saturday 13th we left town around 8.30 am for Boulia . On our very first trip west in 2007 , we made the mistake of travelling this way , without realising that the afternoon sun would be blinding at a certain stage . As I mentioned in the last letter , instead of taking our regular route since that experience i . e . via an overnight stay in Windorah and travelling in a big circle , we
12 Desert Yarns • September 2016