Exciting News - but I can't tell you or you would have to kill me!

Exciting news today for my wife. But I can't yet say anything pending an announcement.

The last fifteen months have been an awfully difficult period for the Rosebery Belshaws. I really mean awful. Sometimes it has seemed that everything that could go wrong will go wrong. During this period I have tried to maintain a positive public outlook even though inwardly I felt very differently.

We (I) are not there yet. There is still some very troubled water to navigate.

I could not say anything on-line about the problems simply because that would have added to the difficulties. But I have kept detailed notes. When I get through, or if I don't get through so that it no longer matters, I will report on all this because I think that it shows something about the underbelly of Australian life.

In the meantime, we have tried to push forward as a family collective and in so doing have begun to achieve results.

Eldest daughter, Helen, enrolled in business studies at UTS at the start of 2006. That was a mistake for a whole raft of reasons. Now she has moved to economics/arts at UNSW and is she excited! Yes, we have an added year's HECS, but that is a small price to pay.

Younger daughter, Clare, has absolutely blossomed. Doing 14 units in the HSC this year, she is presently negotiating with her parents to drop maths, bringing her back to twelve units. I think that she will drop maths, although she is going to do her best in the next test, but the process she had followed means that she has a great future in complex international diplomacy!

Wife Denise made a conscious decision to accept redundancy because she believed that, in terms of what she wanted to do, her firm could not deliver. This had costs, but now she is breaking through.

For my part, blogging has proved to be my salvation. Not only have I enjoyed it, but I have been able to measure my knowledge and skills against an international standard. And I shape up!

As I said, once we are through the next round I will explain in more detail. My experiences have changed me in quite fundamental ways. In the meantime, we keep driving forward.