the year to be

Our family has a few rather significant dates on the calendar for this year.

The first to come up is in just 16 days. That is the day that my eldest daughter will arrive back on home soil after her deployment to the not-very-nice place. To see her safely back is always a relief.

We won't actually see her until after the next date marked in red. In April her other half will be getting home from the even nastier part of the not-very-nice place.

Once they are both back, safe and sound, I can breathe out. I seem to hold my breath the whole time they are gone. I hate that they are sent to these places. I know it is the life they have chosen but it doesn't make it any easier to be the mum fretting thousands of miles away.

Once they are both home, we will get to see the two of them for a couple of days (as they pass through here on the way to their holiday of a lifetime. In May they are heading off for an African safari holiday. My girl will be able to real live hippos instead of the hundreds of stone, wood, and metal ones that adorn her home.

The next mark on the calendar is a more flexible one but sometime in May we should be celebrating the birth of our first grandchild (gender, as yet, unknown). All we can do in preparation of that date (other than knitting until I go blind and haunting Pumpkin Patch sales) is to keep our fingers crossed for an uncomplicated birth and a whole and health Graygan.

In November we get to the last of our "big" dates for the year (so far). On the 25th, my husband turns 60.

It's the biggie. It requires significant recognition. And therein lay the problem.

M is notoriously difficult as far as birthdays are concerned. Almost impossible to buy for and with a thorough dislike of anything resembling a party, we were at a loss.

Even if he liked parties, he has very few friends (although, a lot of acquaintances). If we threw him a celebratory gathering, it would be our mates, not his.

Gifts are a nightmare. Occasionally we get it right (as we did this Christmas with a selection of weather measuring tools) but, more often than not, we get it totally wrong. He read copiously but with very specific and esoteric taste. Book are out. He enjoys woodwork but has inherited both his and my father's collection of tool and needs (and wants) no more. His fascination with the night sky is covered by the whiz bang telescope (and all accessories) he bought himself a few years ago. He loves sailing and the sea but a yacht was way beyond our finances.

We were stumped.

And, then, my son had a brainwave.

When I first met my husband (whilst sailing), he had recently applied, and been passed over, for a position in an Antarctic expedition. Shackleton and Mawson were two of his all time favourite heroes and he longed to follow in their footsteps. Unfortunately, inorganic chemists aren't high on the staff lists in the deep south and he knew he would never see the great white continent.

Well, now he will.

The family are all combining and, for his 60th birthday, are sending him to Antarctica.

We have booked him a berth on a Russian research vessel and he will spend 10 days exploring the peninsula of the continent. Camping on the ice, sailing an icebreaker in and out of the inlets and bays, scudding around the icy waters in a Zodiac and climbing some of the smaller peaks in the area.

He will leave Australia in early December to join the ship in Ushuaia (in Argentina) and will spend Christmas on the ice.

Because he has to have medicals, buy equipment and undergo a fitness routine before he leaves, we will have to give him all the details early. We have decided on Father's Day (in September) as an appropriate time to make the presentation. It gives him plenty of time to do all the pre-sail preparations.

I sincerely hope we have got the whole prezzie thing right this time. Even with Mum and the kids throwing in, it is costing me one hell of a lot of money.

Fingers crossed that I haven't bought him a 12K dud.