Heavenly Beverley : A Year in Heavenly Beverley

I am really looking forward to 2016. I wasn't so sure during the countdown of the last few days.. I had barely become used to 2015. I still believe that 2000 was only a couple of years ago. How could it possibly be yet another new year?

What has changed my attitude? A combination of thoughts, emotions, hopes and dreams almost realised. Over the last year, we have opened the East End Gallery, expanded the space and we are due to finish the last forty-five square metres in the next couple of weeks. After three and a half years of renovation, the Forbes Building is almost completed. Michael's vision has come alive. Tonight he is celebrating with Gary. I just hope he is capable of walking home!

The kids have had milestones of their own. Vanessa graduated from her degree and has gone on successfully to Honours in History. The year has been stressful but she persevered through every challenge. That under her belt, she is now embarking on her Masters in International Relations. She is still happily living in her share house in Nedlands with a bunch of other female students and a cat. And I am now the mum of a fabulous thirty year old!

Callum and Bron now have their own piece of suburban paradise, wih our grandkitten Ragnar. They are so proud, so pleased, so delighted to have their home, garden and feline child. We stayed with them in August when Michael was ill. They went out of their way to make us feel welcome. Bronwyn is about to become a fourth year teacher. Callum is manager at Bravo's, a chic little bistro in Victoria Park.They are outrageously busy, but luckily they both have the energy of youth.

Alex has had a couple of frustrating moves this year and also had a stint in hospital at the same time as Michael. They happened to be in the same hospital, but at separate ends. So I spent twenty-four hours trundling from Michael's room to Alex's ward and back again. Yet in the latter part of 2015, our autistic superstar achieved one great personal goal - a unit of his own. He continues to work at the Swan Friendship Cafe athe the Warehouse Cafe, attended Perth Bible College with great success, had an absolute blast at the BeFriend Ball and knows how to summon Uber.

The Beverley Hillbillies have had a topsy-turvy year. The first few months passed in a blur of the expansion of the Gallery. The Autumn Exhibition and extension was launched. We escaped for ten days in the Goldfields. Unfortunately, we crammed far too much into that trip and Michael was still weary when we came home.

Winter was cold. Michael developed a chest infection. We persisted with oral antibiotics for two months. He wasn't getting worse but he wasn't getting any better either. All Perth hospitals were full to overflowing. After Scott, Michael's specialist was unable to find him a bed, we returned home with additional antibiotics. Two days later, we were admitted into Joondalup Hospital through Emergency. Fours more days, after a course of IV antibiotics, we were discharged and tottered home.

His recovery was, as ever, slow. We were still determined to go away again and have a less hectic trip. We celebrated his 60th with an amazing weekend long party. We were both shattered at the end. We left for the Goldfields on 20 September after the Steampunk Wedding of the century. Although the trip was carried out at a much slower rate, we discovered three new truths.

We need a caravan in the very near future.

The Goldfields are only cool from May until the beginning of September.

We will need to get away from the six coldest weeks of winter and head north.

Spring lasted about five minutes and then summer erupted in full force during October. We settled into a routine of Mandy and me in the East End Gallery and Michael out the back. He rebuilt the fireplace over six weeks, filled, plastered and undercoated the wall to be painted, repaired the skylight and began putting up the tin walls with Gary.

Today, New Year's Eve, the Dynamic Duo turned the corner onto the last wall.

Wow.

Postscript: this has been an epic over three hours in the writing. Michael did manage to get home in one piece. He wisely refused dinner and fell asleep on the couch. Unfortunately en route to bed, he performed a Barry Mackenzie all over our bedroom. Cleaning up took an hour and a half. I put Michael to bed in our guest room with a bucket. That was sheer genius on my part as a very miserable 60 year old used it again about an hour ago. We are staying up to see if he has finished before we try his night meds. Looking good.

This is the only reason we are seeing in the New Year. 2016 is all up from here!