Year in Review: 2025

[aggienaut]

(one international trip, to Copenhagen)


(blue: road; red dotted line: flights (to Ballina and Gold Coast); purple train)

   Reviewing the previous year, 2024, it had been quite a rollercoaster but ended well. Comparatively 2025 was much more stable. I began the year with two good jobs -- Senior Varroa* Extension Officer for Agriculture Victoria (AgVic) (*for those of you new here that's a mite that's a major pest of bees, recently introduced here) as well as editor of Australia's national beekeeping magazine; and of course Cristina had finally managed to get here the previous year.

   On (February 1st?) we moved, from the quaint little village of 800 on the edge of the temperate rainforest, where I'd been livin gfor hte past eight years or so -- to a new development just ouside the larger town of Geelong. There's a lot more opportunities for Cristina here near town, though I miss living way out in the forest.

   On May 14th I turned 43, and my grandfather died at 98.

   I like to get out of Australia entirely in the heart of winter (June/July) but the end of the AgVic job was already on the horizon so I was squirreling away my vacation days for an eventual payout. Nevertheless there were state beekeeping conferences to go to. AgVic sent me to the Victorian one, and on behalf of the magazine I attended the New South Wales and Queensland conferences (of course they didn't compensate me a dime for my expenses but hey). It looks like I only wrote a livejournal entry about the last of those three - probably because I wrote articles about them and didn't fancy rewriting for here (indeed, writing for the magazine kept me so busy I didn't post any livejournal entries at all in February and March!).
   Ballina was where the NSW conference was, a small coastal town near the westernmost point of Australia, I like to call it "Prawn Town" due to the giant prawn sculpture there. We stayed at a very nice little airbnb and visited the nearby famous beach town of Byron Bay. I was afraid Cristina would feel awkward at the banquet at the end of the conference but as it happens we grabbed a table that was mostly occupied by members of a beekeeping family from Argentina and the one random Australian who didn't speak Spanish was the one who felt the odd one out!



   Beachworth: in mid-winter far inland in the forests at the base of Victoria's mountains, this was a wintry week, crunching through frost covered grass and morning fog to the venue, wearing scarves and coats, gathering in snug pubs in the evening and drinking mulled wine.



   And Gold Coast you can read about, but it was another fun experience. I'd never been there before, it's a bit like Vegas (but not nearly so seedy) in that it's a major tourist destination and the streets of the main part are filled with gimmicky places trying to catch tourists, but the beaches were nice. While there we took a trip to (briefly!) visit Brisbane. Brisbane is where I first arrived back in 2012 and haven't been back since so I really enjoyed seeing it again and showed Cristina here I used to live.





   Cristina's circle of friends has expanded rapidly as there's a number of latinas in the area and we've had several fun parties at our place (and as to parties at other places it seems like there's almost one a week!)

   Rather suddenly in October the owner of the ABK magazine informed me it was folding effective more or less immediately, only because the next issue was essentially finished did she agree to send out one more issue but I couldn't even write a goodbye or tell anyone, not that I think very many people were still subscribed by then -- the resubscribe button had been broken for months, the whole thing had been a disaster for he past year with the owner not sending out issues we had completely finished for months and abruptly ending print issues and... altogether it was a sad end to a 126 year old publication. Several parties wanted to buy it but she wouldn't even return their calls I really really don't know what was going on with her. Anyway a sad end to the legacy of the magazine and also a disappointing personal setback because I was really enjoying being a magazine editor.

Copenhagen!
   There's a World Beekeeping Congress ("Apimondia") every two years, and in September 2025 it was in Copenhagen! I went with Cristina, she spent a few days with me then flew to Spain while I was at the conference, then returned and we did some more sightseeing before returning. We both really liked Copenhagen, it's a really nice clean safe city. Having spent a year as an exchange student in Sweden when I was 16 there were also Scandinavian cultural things I had missed. This trip I managed to cover pretty well with LJ entries.



   As of the morning of December 18th I have been in Australia for more than ten years.

Sydney
   As you probably recall since I just posted about it, I ended the year with one last trip, to Sydney, ending the year watching the Sydney fireworks. I won't write more about that now since I so recently posted about it.



2026 Thus Far
   If this just ended at midnight, New Years 2026, it would be a simple warm fuzzy positive story about a pretty good year ... but let us bring the review right up to where we are now.
   We always knew the AgVic job was ending, in fact it was originalyl supposed to end months earlier but kept getting extended. But we also always suspected and this solidified near the end, that there would be continuing positions. Our program with 10 part time "VDOs" and two full time senior VDOs, of which I was one, would end and instead there'd be two full time "Bee Biosecurity Officers" doing very nearly the same thing. Well everyone assured me I was a shoe-in but I had to apply all the same ........ and I didn't get the job. Considering its essentially the same job I had continuing the same work, I can't help but feel a bit like I was fired, which is really weird because by all accounts I was really good at it. But government, I find, is full of byzantine political games. So now I'm suddenly unemployed.
   I'm still waiting to hear back from some other related government positions I applied for. Otherwise, I can get back into bee related writing (when I worked for the government they severely limited what I could publish), do paid consulting and regular beekeeping, and I think all these things should be enough to keep me afloat without having to go back to the ole factory floor.



The Year Ahead
   Is a traditional section of my yearly review, but depending on what ends up happening with the employment situation it's a total unknown right now!!
   One thing is definite though, I'll be sworn in as an Australian citizen February 23rd! I can only assume they'll slap me with a snag (sausage), break an egg over my head, dip me in pickled beetroot, make me solumnly swear (the C word), and reveal to me the secrets of the ANZAC biscuit recipe.
   But yeah other than that, I really can't think of a definite thing I can say about this upcoming year!