Dear Friends,

In my head, this letter was started in November 2022. Well, that didn’t happen. This doesn’t even rate as a New Year letter, but hopefully it will be a January letter. We hope your festive season was … festive, and what’s left of 2023 brings you health, wealth and happiness.

The thought of writing the 2021 Christmas letter was just too depressing. After avoiding the worst of Covid in 2020, Newcastle became Covid central in 2021 with the highest rate of spread in Australia. Some of the family came down with it, although it seems with no after effects. Poss and I have not had it, that we know of. I had a bout of something, but the RAT test didn’t indicate Covid. Can the test be trusted? I read that many people have the antibodies but didn’t show symptoms. So we are not taking any special precautions, except as mandated by the health industry.

Poss’ mum Dawn died in October 2021 after a long period of being bedridden. We knew it was inevitable but that doesn’t help much when it happens. We were able to see her a few times in the year, whenever we were in the area. Around the same time I sold the block of land that for so long has been a source of dreams. It all became impractical, too far away. The thought was to buy something closer but the booming property market around here squashed that. People are paying eye watering prices for houses in our street, which would be fine if we were thinking of selling. But we aren’t. Another 2021 shock was news that a good friend had aggressive cancer and unlikely to see the year out. The doctors didn’t recognise a fighter, she is still with us.

April 2021 we drove to Armidale to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the creation of ABRI (Agricultural Business Research Institute) which was where I worked from 1975-89. When I started, there were a handful of people working in what had been the head gardener’s cottage for the university. While I was there, the building was extended several times and the staff grew to 40 or 50. It was good to meet some I hadn’t seen in 30 years. The next morning I had a tour of the premises, upward of 200 people working there mostly in a newer building next to the even more extended cottage. ABRI is now providing services worldwide, who could foresee that? Even that visit was bittersweet. We met up with the Driscolls, Bill was very sick and didn’t last long after we saw him. A sad reunion but Bill was very pleased to see us so it was comforting that we gave him a little joy.

So 2021 was not the greatest, it made 2022 look good even though nothing much happened. Poss and I are in what could be described as ‘good health’. I answer surveys for a group ‘Life in Australia’, and sometimes the question comes up ‘how do you rate you health’ multiple choice: excellent, good … and my inclination is to email and say “compared to whom?”. There’s an amusing video on YouTube by Bill Bailey, ‘In Britain we process happiness … differently’ where the standard response to ‘how are you’ is ‘not too bad’. I guess that’s us.

Poss turned 70 last April and retired from her one remaining cleaning job. The house owners tried to get her to stay on, Poss was almost family after being there every week for over 20 years. Poss still lunches out with the lady, and gets told about how the new cleaners are OK ‘but not like you’. Poss is still cleaning up daughter Joanne’s house most Thursdays, so has an outlet for her tidiness drive. Cleaning our place is a couple of hours on a Tuesday morning, not challenging enough. We had a catered lunch for the birthday, the caterers were surprisingly accommodating delivering the food in the morning as it was Good Friday. Nicole came from Melbourne and we met her partner Brad for the first time. Poss’ sister Barb surprised Poss, driving the 400km to be part of the celebrations.

Our ‘social life’ has shrunk somewhat, partially due to Covid. Trivia nights at the pub were a Covid casualty. When they did resume it seemed the focus had changed. Questions were aimed at the younger set – shows on streaming services that we hadn’t watched, bands we didn’t know, ‘celebrities’ we couldn’t give a toss about. Too frustrating for me. We no longer play tennis, our small band often can’t field four fit players. The volunteer planting days that used to be once a month have become chaotic and intermittent. Some activities continue unchanged – Saturday morning tea with neighbours around the corner, Wednesday find a local restaurant for dinner, third Thursday of the month gather with neighbours for a meal and a drink at a local pub.

We’ve not had much time away apart from a few day trips just to get out of town. We’ve been able to get to the Coolangatta time share both years, including catching up with McDonalds (we met up at the ABRI reunion – the family retired to Murwillumbah) and McDowells. For our wedding anniversary in April we booked a B&B in the village of Barrington for a few nights, had some day trips around the area, spent time in Gloucester, the local shopping centre. We were told of a good place to have breakfast, it was at the back of a department store. The store wasn’t staffed, wander through the unlit store and find a couple of tables at the back with one person taking orders, cooking, and serving. And yes, the food was worth it.

Most years we have managed to travel to Melbourne, we didn’t make it in 2021. A couple of months ago we took the train and stayed a week with youngest daughter Nicole. Long days travelling, getting there was a 4:30am departure to arrive at Southern Cross station by 6:30pm. The return was slightly more civilised, 7:30 am to around 10pm. Let’s not worry about high speed trains, medium speed would be fine. Melbourne weather was well behaved most of the time, uncharacteristic. Public transport in Melbourne was quite effective, supplemented by a lot of walking. We took a look at the Caulfield campus of Monash uni, it was Caulfield Institute of Technology when I worked there from 1970 to 1972. I did not recognise one building. There is a static ‘computer museum’ which unfortunately didn’t have any pieces from my time at Caulfield, mainly equipment salvaged from Monash.

It was good to catch up with Nicole and granddaughter Ivy. 2022 was Ivy’s first year at school, she is in the optional Steiner stream in a public school. First day there we went to an open day with stalls, concerts and classroom visits. I was impressed by the concerts having sat through some very ordinary primary school presentations. The school encourages talent and it shows. Ivy still earns our epitaph ‘Hurricane Ivy’, she is on the go all the time. Nicole started working at the Australian College of Optometry in Carlton, the hours dovetail nicely into school drop off and pickup. They both seem more settled than the past few years.

Daughter Sandra has bought a ‘same day granny flat’, and sited it in husband Adam’s back yard. An interesting way to avoid the debt spiral from renting. Sandra and Adam separated many years ago, they couldn’t get along in the same house. It was an amicable split and they remain married and still enjoy each other’s company. The ‘flat’ is classified as a caravan, with wheels, tow bar, lights, electric brakes. As such, it does not require council approval. However, it would be very difficult to remove it from the back yard as it was craned in over the house, there being no vehicle access to the yard. As delivered, it was the size of a container. But with some interesting origami mixed with IKEA/Lego style tab A fits slot B it unfolds to more than three times the original size. Sandra has not yet moved in as there is quite a bit of fitting out required, still a work in progress. The services are installed, it has a tiny bathroom and a compact kitchen, quite adequate for one person. There are two bedrooms, Sandra has elected to use the smaller one as her bedroom and the larger as a study – as she does a lot of work from home that makes sense.

This arrangement should suit their son Michael. Adam is often away for work, previously Michael had a second space with Sandra. Now he can stay in his own space in the main house. Michael is soon to be 15 and is taller than the rest of us. He is amiable but like most teenagers mainly incomprehensible talking of games we don’t play, humour we don’t understand, interests in odd areas.

The eldest grandchild Anna is now 15, and along with siblings Emily and Lucy leading a somewhat chaotic family life that is reminiscent of when we had four daughters in the house with diverse interests that required a lot of dropping off and picking up. Anna is interested in theatre, music, and just about anything else. She plays the clarinet well, as adjudged by our neighbours when recently she was at our house and I encouraged her to play a few pieces. Anna is in the school marching band which performs extensively outside the school, and has a very smart uniform. She makes some money as a back stage person when the school puts on stage performances. She seems to be doing well both socially and academically.

Emily completed her first year of High School, she elected to go to a different school than Anna. She seems more driven than the other girls, maybe because she is the 2^nd daughter of a 2^nd daughter of a 2^nd daughter. Or maybe not. As a reward for doing well in her last year of primary school, Poss and I redecorated her room with a vaguely French theme, posters and an Eiffel tower bedspread. She is musically inclined – plays flute, practices on a keyboard, learning guitar and sings. She is also interested in the sciences, She is thinking of doing forensic science this year. Where were these interesting subjects when we were at school?

Lucy is still her bouncy, active self. Nothing seems to faze her, although that could be a front for grandparents. She is starting Year 5 at primary school this year. Same mathematical bent as the others, and also musically inclined. I called her a drummer, but quickly corrected by her to percussionist. We went to an end of year concert where Lucy was maintaining a good beat on the bass drum while at the same time jumping joyfully up and down and having a good time.

In 2021 we had a quick trip to Bathurst to watch Joanne’s graduation ceremony for her Master of Information Studies (Children’s Librarianship). She has not caught the bug to do further study (yet), which seems sensible given the demands of family life. Joanne’s role in the library seems to change almost weekly. When she started her post graduate degree there was the likelihood of a more senior position on completion. The constant reorganisation disappeared the role, then there was a job sharing arrangement that became something else. And as of today, she doesn’t know what hours or where she will be working next week. The job is secure, but chaotic. Husband Scott has somewhat similar problems, he is a relieving community nurse and fills in all the gaps caused by other people going on holiday, sick, long service leave. Unusually, he had Christmas day off. So we had Christmas breakfast at a civilised hour instead of trying to complete before Scott went to work.

Then for Christmas lunch we moved on to Beth and partner Steve’s house. Although Beth has opted out of the hospitality industry Steve is still a chef, and all his culinary skills were on show. So many things to choose from it was hard not to overeat, so of course we did.

Beth has settled into her clerical role with the electrical firm, and has progressed through the hierarchy. I believe she is now scheduling work for a few divisions. She now knows about all sorts of electrical equipment, at least enough to channel enquiries to the appropriate people. And after more than two years is still content with the job. In her previous life as a chef, the jobs were always wonderful for the first six months, then the rose coloured glasses came off.

In my last letter, I said I’d started an electronics project, joined an Amateur Radio club but not that interested in Amateur Radio. Yeah, right. The project got serious, I learned how to design printed circuit boards and had the boards made and I wired them up. After two iterations the project is working well and is likely to be published in an electronics magazine this year. I joined a second radio club and decided since I was there I might as well do the exams and become a radio ‘ham’. So I am now officially licensed, call sign VK2AJC. I have the transmitter but no antenna as yet. Job for this year.

With Love – Alan and Poss

Anna in marching band uniform (late 2020)