Xmas in Melbourne

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Festivities are Over



A Happy New Year to everyone.



We arrived safely in Melbourne a week or so before Xmas and parked up in Wantirna. We visited my cousin Stephen and his wife Jenny and had a pleasant afternoon reminiscing about our “Slim Days”. Last time Stephen and I met, we were both in the low 80kg’s, but boy how things have changed! Jenny, once again, produced a superb home-made dish for lunch while Stephen showed us around his “communication centre”. (he has no fewer than 12 computers networked).



The following day was spent catching up with my neice, Andrea and family. We had a lovely time at a little village called Warrandyte. The Yarra River flows alongside the village and the children had fun feeding the ducks. Andrea and Neil were a bit down at the time after having a number of emigration applications turned down. Anyway, at the time of writing, their fortunes have changed and it seems that Andrea is still considered an Australian resident and will therefore be allowed to return permanently with her family. Great news.



We headed down to Phillip Island on 22^nd Dec. and, thanks to Rose’s reversing skills, managed to squeeze the van into the driveway of the holiday house that Pete & Laura had kindly booked for our family get-together. It was great seeing Pete and Laura and Colin and Tina (Laura’s folks) again. Georgina and Gwen arrived a short time after us with Ellie, Greg and the girls arriving the day after. Mike, Angela and Sue came down on Xmas Eve. Needless to say, the competitions began at the drop of a hat with table tennis being the most popular. Even Gwen, now 96, got up and had a hit.



Xmas Eve morning was spent at the GP Track with most doing the organized tour. This was followed by us all racing around the Go-Cart track, which is a 1/5^th scale of the full track. The winner was Pete, followed by Colin then me. Laura led the girls with Rose next, Tiarne, Tina then Georgina. To be fair, Tina and Georgina had a girl passenger each in their cars so safety ruled the day for them. We weren’t finished there though. Onto the slot cars where Tiarne trounced the opposition. All in all a great day was had by all



Xmas day saw me dress up as Santa and I must say it looked like I had a pillow stuffed under my shirt but I have to admit it was all me under there!! We had a good laugh handing out the gifts, followed by a magnificent spread of food prepared by an eclectic bunch of amateur chefs. The evening was spent telling stories and singing songs thanks to Mike’s incredible ability to remember the words of any song that was requested. Needless to say, boxing day was a very quiet affair, with most of us lazing around or playing phone scrabble??



Rose and myself left on 27^th and collected Cassandra from the airport before heading across towards Adelaide for New Year. Georgina hitched a ride with us and provided some comical company as we travelled the 800km.



That’s all for now – check out the next blog for New Year etc. J & R

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Photos

Me and Cuz
Stephen and myself - looking healthy???

Four Generations
Lovely snap of the female generations.

Grandchildren
Speaks for itself

Happy Families
What a nice shot of Pete, Laura, Colin & Tina.

Hi here son
G'day mate

Fat Santa
I wonder if they guessed it was me???

Group Shot
Thanks again for a lovely Xmas

Comments

[Stephen]

Healthy?
Hey - you leave my twins outta this - they're due in about, well, ummm, errr, a few years (I mean, I've been carrying them now for well, ummm, errr, a few years :) I'm holding you to your promise to come back via Melbourne. And boy, are you then gonna cop it! Healthy my As.....errrr welll, you get the drift! See you soon......