Dear All,
There have been quite a few events this week, but I forgot to take photos of some of them. However, I got some good photos of the couple I remembered to take.
The Youth Mass on the Feast of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart last Saturday was a lovely occasion. The Cathedral was filled, although not packed - we had plenty of space. There were youth there in plenty and St John's choir led the music with their young conductor, Regina, whose voice is a delight to hear - very sweet, very true, musical, and excellent quality, plus well trained. No wonder the choir sings well. That added a vibrancy to the whole celebration. The Youth up here have a special affection for Cardinal Pell because he made it possible for them to get the funds for all their youth group to get to Sydney last year for World Youth Day. At the close of Mass they made a special presentation to him and gave a couple of speeches of thanks. The Cardinal seemed to enjoy the Mass to and looked relaxed and happy. I think he had a good week and the 'swine flu' (ahem!!!) which he had at the start of the week (aka, a bit of a throat and cough and sniffle) subsided within days.
After Mass there was lunch provided for the youth and visitors with the Cardinal under a marque beside the Cathedral. We OLSH repaired to the Convent courtyard with the Associates (total number of us was about 24) and enjoyed a light lunch together followed by a simple liturgy in the Chapel.
That evening all we Darwin OLSH (Salonika 2, and Darwin 3) went out for tea at the Trailler Boat Club. Here is where I remembered to take photos. It is a sunset event, because Darwin is renowned for its sunsets, and you order your meal (I had char-grilled rump with salad etc - excellent), carry away a buzzer, and when it lights up and sounds you go and collect your meal. We were given our plates with the cooked meat and collected what we wanted from the salads and hot vegetable dishes nearby. Here are a few of my many many pictures:
(Above) 1. You can see this is the entrance to the place; and 2. After you go in that front door, you order and go outside in an enclosed area on the left of the entrance and find a table. The harbour is on the left which is the west. 3. I was standing in the queue to take this photo as the sun was going down and so couldn't avoid the sunshade, but it is still a nice photo.
As the sun declined below the horizon, the colour changed and you can see that in the enlarged centre photo at the top of the page. I'll show you now how the colour changes over the next 15 - 20 minutes:
1. This was just after the sun set. 2. The sun started to light up the clouds - this one may in sequence have come where the large photo is and vice versa. Too much trouble to change!. See the people down on the water's edge. 3. After it became dark, children and teenagers stood down in the lit area of the beach - the children to play, the teenagers to socialise some distance from their parents back in the seats behind the rock here which was part of the retaining structure for our outdoor eating area.
On Sunday, Pat and Hartley Smith from St Peter's Parish, Rochedale, called in, having spent a week in Kakadu on their Caravan trip from Brisbane up through the west of Queensland and across to Darwin and then the Kimberleys. They came to Mass at St Martin de Porres Church and found it a real experience (good) - very friendly, and a bit different in a good way. Afterward, we went to Nightcliff and they left their 'packed to the hilt' 4-wheel drive in the carpark shown in the first picture and we looked for a place to have lunch. We ended up in Fannie Bay at a place called 'Cool Spot' and it was an excellent choice. At first we thought we would sit outside on the open verandah, but smelt smoke (cigarettes) and thought the seats inside looked rather nice. It was air-conditioned inside and the seats we eyed off were up about three stairs on a raised section and we had an unrestricted view out, with no smoke, and lovely ambience. Good choice! I enjoyed my lunch of roast duck in plum sauce salad. It was a light lunch but very tender and tasty ovals of this marinated duck around the top of a pile of fresh salad. I would have it again. I took no photos here, but afterwards we went to the Wave Pool area beside the new Convention Centre and walked around seeing the sights. There are some pictures of this. 
1. You can see the edge of the carpark and the walking/bicycle path between the rails and the beach. The tide is out - I think you can see!
2. Here is the wave pool and, sorry, you can't enlarge this middle picture, but you can see it is quite large and very popular. It is lovely clean water and the waves are sort of big bumps which keep moving down the pool.
3. Here are Pat, myself, and Hartley on the end of Stokes Wharf. The camera is sitting on a rail and you can see a bit of it in the left corner. The nice floral decoration was quite accidental. I had 10 seconds to position myself and smile. It will enlarge if you really want to see our expressions!
There are many signs of the dry here - kites 
beginning to appear in the sky; my hair very
disinclined to wave and sit where I want it to;
relentlessly sunny skies; far less humidity; everything needing watering in the garden or else it goes brown within days; and finally, I sat in my car having lunch at Dripstone Cliffs picnic area and, lo and behold, I had a friendly little Rainbow
Bee Eater flitting around - quite unafraid of the car (the engine was running to maintain air-conditioning. Look hard and you will see him on the fence near the central post. Two mates joined him/her and flew around too. These little kingfishers come in groups during the dry. They swoop after insects in flight. You can enlarge this picture.
Work has been continuing and I make slow progress, but I am making progress. We had an 'expert' up from Melbourne for 3 days and he was helpful and encouraged. It will be good to actually teach and it looks as though I will help in a class in the first week back (July 20) and teach a class by myself the next week. The teaching is pretty intensive once you start with 3 sessions each of one and a half hours daily. The pace is very slow ( you know how naturally patient I am!!!!) because of the language hurdles.
Today we had the funeral of an msc Brother who has been up here since 1941 - mainly with the Tiwi people on Bathurst Island - and who died last week aged 102. He had a big funeral in the Cathedral with the Chief Minister and others present, and then was flown to Bathurst Island for an outdoor Mass over there and burial (his request). The call his the 'father of football' around here because he introduced AFL to the Tiwis on Bathurst and instilled in them a love of a game for which he saw they had a natural talent. From there the game spread throughout the north and St Mary's was the first Football Team in Darwin to have entirely Aboriginal Players. Br John Pye himself had been an outstanding athlete at school (Riverina area) and was also a talented student who became a diesel engineer. One of the men (Aboriginal) after the funeral was interviewed and said of him "He was..... he was.... he was perfect ... he was a perfect man!" Another story was told about his lack of cooking skills and the time he cooked a roast with the plastic still on it!
It is bed time so I will finish here and publish this. Hope everyone is well and swine-flu free! (such a terrible title for a disease!) We are getting a scattering of cases up here, but it seems mild and no one is terribly worried about it yet. Time will tell. You can worry about things like that and then have your plane fall out of the sky! I know which one I would rather have.
With those profound words I will close for the week.
Love from Rita
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