Dear People,

Who can I blame (apart from myself) for the lateness of the letter? I guess I could blame daylight sayings - the sun is out until 8:00 p.m. so we do things until then, then dinner and it's almost bedtime (how is it that noone believes me ...) I don't know how you feel about Christmas cards but when they start arriving I try to picture the people being so organised that they get them to you with about a week to spare. Then there's the ones that arrive in the last few days and you wonder if they were even better organised or were Australia Post more efficient than expected. And THEN there's the ones like this one and you instantly know how disorganised the people are because they couldn't get their act together and send out a simple letter on time, and it's not like I write a special letter to each and every one of you (much as I'd like to - but think just how late that would be ..). In defence of Poss, she has had the cards and envelopes written and addressed for ages, it is I who is dragging the chain.

Apologies over, to business. We stayed with Poss's parents at Valla Park last Christmas - a pleasant break but a little crowded as there were from 9 to 12 of us staying in a 2 bedroom house. Friends were camped at the park so we got together most days, whooped it up for New Year then made our way back home.

This house is working well, we have had quite a few visitors stay a day or two throughout the year. For those of you just thinking about it, come on down - it is an easy way to renew acquaintances, and Newcastle is an excellent place to spend a day or two with the lake, the harbour, the beaches, the vineyards. We removed the electric stove and hot water and replaced them with gas. Poss has always preferred gas for cooking, and with four teenage (or nearly) girls in the house, the offpeak ran a little ragged at times. Apart from that we live with the minor deficiencies. We pulled out the "built in" wardrobes from two of the rooms, they really were too big and taking them out allows more freedom in arranging (and for Poss, rearranging) the contents.

The back yard is slowly being overhauled. The in-ground pool is exactly that - a pool stuck in the ground. It has no paving or surrounds, just some concrete blocks around part of the edge. Also, to get the pool in required some quite large diggings, with banks of up to 1.5 meters. These are starting to crumble and really need some form of retaining wall. I got a quote for paving and retaining and it was $5500 - so I thought I'd do it myself. When I finally sorted out all the things that needed to be done, I realised that I'd have to put in a different path to the pool which required the fence to be moved which needed the pump to be shifted which needed the plumbing and wiring rearranged which needed ... I think you get the picture. Anyway, I am currently excavating a new path, and using the excavated dirt to generate a flat area adjacent to the rear of the house.

It seems we are not destined to keep pets here. The cat and kittens we brought from Armidale either died or disappeared within months of our arrival. The cat we acquired last year recovered totally from her malaise then was killed on the road. We then acquired a sick guinea pig which we nursed to health then it developed an abcess and died (after consuming much vetinary resources). Perhaps we should go back to tropical fish which we had in Melbourne and in Armidale. They were hardy, didn't wander much and were little trouble.

The only major family outing for the year was the return to the time-share resort. This time we took two weeks and travelled to Hervey Bay in the first week to stay with Kerry and Nigel Harden for a few days then back to Coolangatta for the second week. On the way north we stopped in on Judy and Alex McDonald in Armidale. They have an excellent country estate, a pity to leave after just one night's stay. We wished we could have seen more Armidale people but our schedule was worked out to almost the hour.

Then on to Jenny and Chris McDowell at Lismore - another pleasant reunion, and luckily Jenny was able to stay with us in return for a few days late October as their son was a state finalist in a tennis competition, the finals being played in Gosford. Then on to my cousin Barbara's place, who had moved to Wurtullah - one of a miriad suburbs that have appeared along the sunshine coast. Barbara is a Victorian refugee, she dropped in on her way north in January and invited us to stay if we were in the area. We took her at her word. She and Tom had a night cleaning business, so I am not sure we were easy to accomodate. Barbara and I chatted about Moe in the fifties where we grew up, and that was probably the last time we had seen each other for more than a few minutes. Perhaps in '94 we'll organise things better, especially as I wanted to catch up with Jill and Harry Terry who are also Vic reffos now living near Caloundra (and related to cousin Barbara), but they left for America the day we arrived on the sunshine coast.

The sunshine coast didn't really live up to its name, it was overcast and cool but then it was the middle of July. The next day we drove the couple of hundred km to Hardens, and settled in for a few days. They seem to have taken to Queensland life like fish to water. We did very little for one day, then took a day tour of Fraser Is., then spent a day just wandering the back roads looking. Fraser Is. did not bowl me over, perhaps I expected too much of what basically is a rather large well vegitated sand dune. There is no doubt that it is a pretty and varied environment, packing a lot into a fairly compact package. Sandra, Joanne and I took a brief plane trip off the beach, across the island and back again. The lakes and sand dunes are impressive from the air. I enjoyed the novelty of being ferried around in a four wheel drive bus as much as any of the scenery. Perhaps we should spend more time to take it all in - but life is short and I still haven't seen Kakadu.

The week at Coolangatta was pleasant and holidayish - we did a lot of nothing and had a good time doing it. Then back to the grind after staying a night on the return journey with Poss's parents.

My mother stayed for four weeks starting early February. She was 77 this year and it seems that time is taking its toll. She came via cousin Barbara and when she arrived was very vague and barely able to string a sentence together. She was afraid she had Parkinson's disease so I organised for her to see a specialist while here to check her out. The specialist did not think that mother had cause to worry about Parkinson's. If she had it, it was not to a diagnosable stage. After a month here mother was much better, although definitely not well. Unfortunately, she is not able to walk far as her ankles are rheumatic. Even though we are about five blocks from a major shopping centre, she had to be driven or take a taxi. So she found it difficult to pass the day as we were all out at school or work most of the week. I have talked to her on the phone regularily and sometimes she is quite chirpy but I think living in Collinsville can do nothing to stimulate her. Her current doctor (they don't seem to last in Collinsville) has taken an interest in her and is trying some new therapies to see if her situation improves. We can only pray that it does.

All the children are doing well. I guess the word 'child' has a limited lifetime, as Nicole, the "baby", is ten now and will be going to America to stay with Poss's sister Barbara next year, and will be finished with primary school. Sandra completed her HSC year and we are hopeful she will start Uni next year.

Studies have kept Sandra pretty busy this year so she has not done much else. She kept up her trumpet playing with the Westlakes band until about midyear, and also played with the school jazz band. Her social life was pretty full most of the year and tapered off as the HSC exams loomed. I believe she handled the exams well. In the trials she was fifth in the school, with good placings in all subjects except Japanese which she let slide. She started the year doing 4-Unit maths which is an exceedingly time consuming and difficult subject. Fortunately, she realised that it was dragging her down in other subjects so dropped back to 3-Unit maths (which is still a toughie). It will be interesting to see how she does in her Tertiary Entrance Ranking, which is the all important measure used for controlling entrance to Medicine, her chosen Uni subject. Last year the TER was about 98, which meant you had to do better than 98% of the HSC candidates. Because the TER is worked from a weighted mark system, where marks in some subjects have more value than in others, it is difficult to extrapolate from the Trial marks. We shall just have to wait.

Because Sandra had worked so well, Poss organised a ticket to Phantom of the Opera for her, with catered bus trip and dinner. Sandra has wanted to go for at least 5 years, we nearly made it when in Melbourne two years ago but were victim of some bad luck. The smile on her face was worth any amount of tickets. The night after Phantom was her final year formal dinner, on the ship 'The South Steyne', a glorious reminder of the thirties and forties. Then two days later she went to stay with Poss's parents, to work at the Valla Park Resort, where she is now. She made the front page of the local newspapers last month - not for any acheivment but for being 'rescued' during a violent storm from an island where she was camping. It was interesting to note the differences between Sandra's version and the newspaper.

Joanne continued to be our main cause of worry. She maintained her relationship with her last year boyfriend and became quite difficult to deal with. Her mid-year marks were slipping badly and she would not accept the restrictions on going out that we tried to impose. In the end, we gave up trying to control her day to day life and drew up a "contract" which basically said she could come and go as she pleased as long as we knew when and where she would be. In return, she had to conform to some minimum standards of social behaviour, and reach an academic target (which is really why we try to impose dicipline anyhow). The penalty of failure was that Joanne would receive no further income from the family in 1994.

This seemed to be having the desired effect as she became less distant and more amenable to our wishes. Then on her 16th birthday (7th October) she got drunk on whiskey. Not just tipsy but falling down drunk. Needless to say this was a huge breach of the contract and so serious discussion ensued. I agreed not to impose the penalty if Joanne voluntarily 'grounded' herself for six weeks (which just happened to be the time to the final exams). She agreed to this. And now things are fine - Joanne is fed up with the boyfriend, and has joined the mainstream of the social whirl. And to cap it all off she came first in French and Maths, and first in the year at school. There is light at the end of every tunnel.

Beth has grown in maturity and confidence this year. She still occasionally pines for Armidale but I believe this is just to make us feel bad. She is known to wear thick jumpers on days when the temperature is in the mid 20s, how she could cope with an Armidale winter beats me. She still goes to tennis lessons every Saturday, but doesn't play otherwise. Her favourite occupation is watching TV, which doesn't go down well with me. I have threatened to remove all TVs if she doesn't reduce her screen time but I'm not sure I'd ever carry it out.

Academically she is bright but not brilliant. She has a very wide ranging talent and is getting good marks in art and craft subjects, something the others don't do. She also is developing as a musician. She chose to play the clarinet in the school band and was playing recognisable tunes within weeks of the instrument coming home. Her teacher recommended she get her own instrument which I promised for her birthday in July but like this letter, it arrived a little late. In fact it was bought at a sale, for about $200 less than normal, earlier this month. She was delighted, and may even have forgiven me for the delay.

Nicole has had a good year. She seems to be in anything that is going, whereas the others at her age would hang back and see how things would turn out first. I guess that's an advantage gained from being the youngest and having to push sometimes to get your own way. Her school work is excellent and her reports are worth showing to other people.

She has completely recovered from her back troubles of last year. She competed solidly at gymnastics, achieving many medals at level 3 earlier this year including two first overall at local competitions. She was chosen for the Hunter squad for the state competition, and was 12th in the state at her level. The Hunter team was the best team so she brought home a team gold medal. She has moved on to Level 4 and has serious competition as the age bracket for juniors changes, and she is up against girls who were seniors in Level 3. The Lakeside club has become arguably the strongest club in the Hunter, so she has trouble making the team for a competition. Things will change next year as many of the juniors will become seniors but Nic is young enough to remain a junior. I hope she keeps it up in America. The American end will be different as Barb and Gordon are moving to Boston, where Gordon is starting his own company. This is a recent development and at this stage we have no details. Tell you more next year.

I asked Poss how her year was, and she said 'same as last year' and I guess that's pretty well the way it is. She has had some changes of clientelle in the house cleaning business, is still on the school council, still plays tennis on Tuesday mornings, plays volleyball with me Thursday night. She is the unchanging centre of the family, for which the rest of us are eternally grateful.

I have not had the best of years. I had what was thought to be an infected prostate for about six months. I failed yet again to complete the project required to finalise my degree, and will not be trying again - a pity but the piece of paper has little effect on my career now. Everything seems fine now, work is good, life is good.

Lots more to say but we've run out of paper. Hope your Christmas was merry and your New Year fulfills your expectations.

Love to you all from Alan, Beth, Joanne, Nicole, Poss and Sandra.