Young Nomads

We have had an overnight visit by Sean, Denise, Cody and Bae.

I taught Sean at Rockingham SHS in the late 70s and we have kept in contact over the years catching up when Sean comes home to W.A. or when we travel to Sydney town.

They sold up their house in Sydney’s west and bought a large caravan and 4WD and have been doing the young nomad thing for almost two years. Denise home-schools their two children and she has done a great job, and it shows because they are quite intellectual and can talk on a broad range of topics. Their travels around Australia has given them an education they wouldn’t have had sitting in a school classroom. I am guessing that Cody is about 10 and Bae is probably 8.

Cody is an avid reader and has the full collection of Andy Griffith’s children’s books. He went to the Writers’ Festival at UWA today with a pile of books to get autographed by Andy, but it seems that several hundred other people had the same idea. Haven’t heard if he was successful in meeting his idol and getting his books signed.

Bae also reads Andy’s books by borrowing from Cody’s library. Cody has made a library card for her and she is probably fined if she doesn’t return a book on time.

Sean is doing part-time lecturing at Edith Cowan University and is loving it. He did a post graduate Dip.Ed a couple of years ago with the aim of getting into teaching. Travelling around Australia has given him a taste of what relief teachers have to put up with. Generally, high school students give relief teachers a hard time so he is delighted to teach adults at a university.

They have no immediate plans to settle in one place again, but that will of course come to be some day.

It was a most pleasant visit with good friends and very nice kids.