Bring in the New Year

I have just celebrated Christmas for the 67th time. Wow that's a lot of Christmas's. Although the first few I don't remember and probably a few more I have wiped out. It was great this year to see the grandchildren so excited. We were also lucky with the weather. Tony had been working on the pool to have it "just right" for Xmas and we got a 33 degree day.

We started the day by opening the presents then going for a swim. By the time we were ready to eat the weather had cooled down a bit and we were able to sit outside. Craig and Anny provided the Enchiladas for entree. David cooked the turkey and Simone made the stuffing to go with the ham, pork, prawns, oysters, mixed veggies and salad. When all this had settled we went inside to have a beautiful dessert of Lime cheesecake and Berry Yogurt Cake which Kerry-Ann had made.

Of course I always have some disasters ......one the Christmas cake I burnt. Its not too bad if you cut off the top and bottom. I also had a problem when I was making some small quiches to take to our card night party. I could not get the pastry to kneed properly. I was getting rather angry and was about to throw it all in the bin. I then decided I was not going to let it beat me. I put some more milk in and broke it up into smaller pieces and rolled them out. They turned out ok but next time I'm just going to buy the ready made pastry.

I was waiting for Melissa to call on Christmas Day and when she did I said the wrong thing and made her cry. I hope this did not spoil her day!

The last 2 days have been quite relaxing. I have watched 10 episodes of the latest series of Dexter......only 2 to go. I can then start the 2nd series of Glee. Felise is wrapped in Glee and know all the characters.

We are going out on a friend of a friend's boat for a bbq on Wednesday. Will let you know if I have survived this in my next blog.

Forgot my password

Its been a while since I have had to log in my password and it slipped my mind completely. So I have spent the last ten minutes trying to reset a new one. Well here I am. That's not the only thing I have forgotten lately. I spend all last Sunday afternoon searching through old papers trying to find my maternal grandmother's birth certificate. I found it some months ago and noticed that she was born in England. At the time I did not notice where abouts in England so I have made it my mission to find out. Of course, I cannot remember where I put it but came across some interesting old letters. One was from my Dad's cousin written in 1938 advising him that he had been left some money by his Uncle. This is the uncle that lived in Belluvue Hill and where we spent many Christmas's when we were wee tots with all our cousins. The cousin is also the brother of Laurence, the one the caused a ruckus at my brother, Geoff's, funeral. Anyway the sum he was left was £34.7.7 which must have been a decent amount in those days. It probably paid for my Mum's engagement ring. I also found letters written by Kerry-Ann when she was overseas in 1991 and a letter from David when he was at a school camp telling me how dreadful the food was, how the rain was spoiling everything and would I have his favourite food and a warm bed for him when he got home. It was an interesting afternoon but I did not find that certificate. I am more determined than ever to do so. I know I can go on to ancestry.com and get a 14 day free trial but you then have to ring up to cancel it so you don't get charged. I have done that several times with dvd offers and would like to avoid it if possible. Sooooo onward looking.

We had our Christmas lunch at Tebbutt Lodge last week. Rev Gardner and all the dignities where there as our Manager, Helga, was receiving an award for her Special Services to the Wesley Mission. I had my last day for the year on Tuesday. Nellie, the lady that always holds on to her handbag for dear life and grunts, has come a long way we me this year. She now participates in trivia and even cracks a few smart remarks. The wedding is off between John and Diane. John has been in hospital for the last 2 months and Diane had now found out he won't be coming back to Tebbutt as he needs a place with a bit higher care. We are giving our pregnant volunteer, Olga, a baby shower after Christmas. She is such a sweet little thing. I think the resident's will get a kick out of that.

Last Thursday they held a ham raffle at Parramatta RSL........lots of whole hams and half hams.

We were going out on Friday with Peter and Carol (Dubbo friends) for dinner there so we asked them would they mind going Thursday instead so we could go in the ham raffle. They agreed so we brought $10 worth and they did as well. Guess who won the ham. That's right, they did.......and a whole one at that. The previous Sunday we had spend a few hours they waiting for this $10,000 draw. Only they drew 2 names out every 1/2 hr which meant we had to stay there. So we had afternoon tea, then dinner and didn't even get our names pulled out. There was one consolation, I had my name with another lady's pulled out for "the price is right" and had to guess the price of a bottle of olive oil with garlic. For the correct answer I received a gift basket. So the time was not completely wasted.

.......Roll on Christmas.

Nelson Bay is not the same when it is wet.

Hi............I'm back after a couple of months rest. I shouldn't say rest because it has been quite hectic and nerve racking and I haven't felt up to putting words on paper.

This is a photo of the Dancing Ten (although there is only nine now). It was taken at the Hogs Breath Cafe at Nelson Bay where we had our six monthly get together and stayed overnight at the Nelson Bay Lodge. Our 2 monthly meetings at Raymond Terrace became a bit of a chore as we are all getting on now so we decided to do overnights 6 monthly instead.

I was looking forward to taking the track to Dutches Beach and having a swim but the skies opened up and down came the rain and that was the end of that.

Tony's Brother and sister in law, Kenneth and Sheila are coming to Sydney next Thursday for 5 days. It is Kenneth's birthday on Friday so, guess what, we are going to Zacs. On Saturday, for his birthday, we are taking him on a seafood Harbour Cruise and on Sunday we are having a family BBQ.

Do you like our little frog? We found him sitting on our front window but we didn't invite him in.

This weekend we are off to the annual volunteer dinner at Wesley Mission in the city. Hopefully we won't have a heat wave like last year on this day. We will also be able to have a look at the David Jones Christmas Windows.

What .....is it only 37 days until Christmas? Where did the other 328 go?

We will do the Kris Kringle draw at the BBQ on Sunday.

Only a short blog today until I get into the swing of things.

Happy Birthday Jake

Jake is really into dinosaurs. We took him to Kids Playland for his Birthday but all day long he was waiting to have his dinosaur cake his Mum made. He was so excited about all the dinosaurs.

When a garden's not a garden.

We went to our friendly neighbour bowling club at Northmead on Saturday night for a Christmas in July dinner. I was never keen on the interception of Christmas in July and think it should be called "Winterfest". Some of our card friends asked us to come along so we did in spite of the fact the Tigers were playing that night. Anyway the people who run the restaurant at the club are Chinese and I don't know if they were quite sure what a typical Christmas in July dinner was but they tried their best. They served Chicken and Pork (without the apple sauce much to my disgust) and Chocolate Muffins with custard (which I left as I was looking forward to the plum pudding). Despite the disappointment with the dinner we had a good night with lots of dancing.
To my surprise the next day my knees were ok and I could move around. I managed during the night to go into the other room where the screens were and watch the end of the Tigers match with Peter, one of our friends who is also a tigers fan.

Tebbut Lodge news...... Last week we arranged a garden bed in a pattern and planted some different types of flowers. This week we were told my the Manager that we had to dig them all up and plant them somewhere else and this patch was to be lawn and not a garden. So Robert and Thomas dug them up and we replanted them. Although I don't know how they are going to go after their poor start.
I manage to type up a bit of Ron's book on Sunday and discussed some of the pages with him today. There are quite a few spelling and grammer corrections I have to make as I go along. I think I need Melissa to do some editing. I will send her some of the book shortly.
Trivia gets a good turn up these days. I think it may be the chocolates I hand out afterwards. Even the ones that have been asleep seem to wake up at handout time.

A new novel

I should be rather busy for the next few weeks .... months. One of the residents of Tebbutt Lodge who has written a book has asked me to type out the 400 pages for him. The title is "The Dream of Oscar Wilde". I haven't read any of it yet but David read the first couple of pages last night and said it didn't keep his interest. Then again it mightn't be the type of book of interest to David. Ron said he wasn't in a hurry for it as he had been waiting a year already. On the front cover it says "Should I die before this work is published and the family is not interested in its progress, please hand over to Tebbutt Lodge for publication and royalties". I most likely will start it tomorrow.

Diane and John were thrilled with the engagement card I gave them and said, of course, you
are invited to the wedding. They have not settled on a date as yet.


Jake turns 2 next Thursday and he is having a Birthday afternoon tea with lots of dinosaurs.

A few days in the Mid West

Here I am blogging again. I have to be in the mood to write and lately I have been distracted with other things. One reason being a jigsaw puzzle which is now finally completed. It's amazing you can spend hours looking for one piece, you give it a break for a day or so come back and pick up the piece you found so hard to find.

Also we had a break in Mudgee this week which was very relaxing. The accommodation was brilliant and worth 5 stars. We went with our friends we met on our New Zealand trip, Peter and Gina and we all got on fabulously. Only don't go there on a Monday or Tuesday as everything is closed those days. Despite this, we found a couple of wineries and attractions open and managed to polish off a couple of tasty cheese platters.

The great granddaughter of the original owner Dr Lester, who built the Federation house where we stayed, had purchased this house about 10 years ago when it came up for auction. Apparently it had been sold some years back and had been doctor's surgeries and when the previous owner purchased it she spent quite a lot of money turning it into a B & B but never completed it as she was charged with embezzlement and the bank put the house up for auction. Hence, Robbie the granddaughter, who had her eye on the place for some time and wanted it in back in the family. They certainly did a good job of restoring it to its original condition. We were in the East Wing and had the Red Queen Room and our friends had the Blue Queen Room. Our hosts, Robbie and Errol, were magnificent and made us feel welcome with all the comforts we could ask for.

About 16 kms away was a town called Gulgong. It looked like one of the towns out west in the US. This town is famous and is called the Ten Dollar Town as its picture was featured on the original Ten Dollar Note. But of course, being Tuesday, there was not some many things open. So we carried on to another winery with magnificent views. Our next couple of days away will most likely be Wollongong or Orange.

Last Sunday Kerry-Ann, Felise, Jake and myself took a trip to Thirlmere Heritage Railway for a Day out with Thomas the Tank Engine. However we did not ride on Thomas but another one of his friends, called Donald and boarded this on a heritage-listed 1880s railway station called Sodar. There were over 40 locomotives and 80 carriages on display in the Museum. Our favourite was the goal train. After a picnic lunch and some serious fun on the jumping castle we took 2 tired little bunnies home but not forgetting to stop and play for 5 minutes at Grandma's as Felise had wanted to do.

I have had a couple of weeks off Tebbut Lodge ...reason being first week I looked after Felise and Jake and second week I was in Mudgee. Will have to prepare my trivia tomorrow as I know they will all be looking forwarded to it. Especially the newly engaged couple, Diane and John who are my no 1 fans. Their wedding will be a first at the Lodge.

Tony has gone to the footy today and taken a Warriors supporter in my place and this has allowed me to catch up on some important "me time". I will be watching the tigers play in a moment and if they can beat Manly they will be in second place on the ladder.