28 Kendall St.,
      Charlestown NSW 2290
      9th. December 1998
     

Dear People,

      Greetings to you all, best wishes for the festive season and may you have a safe, healthy, happy year in 1999. The Cashins have had a peaceful, even prosperous year with nothing more than the odd sniffle to disturb us. Hope you all were as lucky.

      I joined a public speaking group toward the end of last year, called Rostrum. It is like Toastmasters, but not as well known. The topic for this week is 'The Heat is on for Christmas'. I'm sure it will draw many sympathetic speeches. This letter was started at 10:10 pm Wednesday, the first available time slice this week. Of course, ultraViolet took precedence at 8:30, not everyone's choice of TV but Poss and I were sucked in. Poss has been out for a Christmas nosh with her tennis mates, she's replaying it right now.

      For the first time in a long time, we didn't have a couple of weeks away together. Poss went to Darwin with her sister Barbara in June to visit their parents for Dawn's 70th birthday. I had three weeks off in September and did nothing - something different for me, and it went far too quickly. Norm and Dawn seem to have taken to Darwin, they have been living with Poss's brother David, and the three of them have been living in caravans up 'till now. But they moved into a house just in time to avoid being exposed to the tail end of the cyclone (although from the accounts it doesn't seem it did much damage).

      Sandra went to Japan to teach english in a girl's school, she still has trouble with speaking japanese, most of the people she meets are either english speakers or want to practice their english on her, so she doesn't get much practice in return. It is a difficult language, Sandra gave me a book about it written by a japanese scholar and he says it takes twice as much time to learn the language at school compared with english, and three times as much as italian. I guess that's because it hasn't been sorted out as much as most languages, there are lots of dialects and the written language is very difficult to handle. Sandra's reactions have been mixed, she likes the change, loves to have a jingle in her pocket, but misses all the people she's left behind, and has difficulty finding things to eat and wear. She has enrolled for the next uni year, will arrive back 2 weeks after start of classes so no time for holidays. She is taking some weeks off over Christmas (it is not a japanese holiday, so is taking accumulated holiday leave), Leif is going over there and they will go sightseeing. They must have found true love, a year apart would test most relationships to the limit.

      With only Beth and Nicole home, the house doesn't seem so full. Poss and I have compensated for this however, she has bought some pieces of furniture to fill the holes and I have taken over most of the 'dungeon' as an electronics workshop. One bedroom was a spare bedroom and the other a sewing room. Not that a lot of electronics or sewing goes on, however it is a change to have space to move. Nicole is now 15 and is stamping out her independance. She is a quiet girl in a noisy teenage way, if you get what I mean. She spends hours 'chatting' on the internet, more hours in her room listening to JJJ, and hasn't struck up a relationship with the opposite sex yet. I'm not sure this is a good thing, it seems the longer the delay, the more emotion gets chucked around when the time comes. But maybe I worry needlessly, I talked to a 21 year old on the train a few weeks ago, she left home at 15 and moved back after a few months and claims to have returned to normal at 21. It doesn't look like we will get that from Nicole.

      In fact she is pretty much the same, definitely the most fashion concious of us all. She was considering dropping her piano studies but she has decided to continue. This is good, she plays well and is a delight to listen to (not that this happens much, a closet musician). It seems the change of heart brought a resolve to learn 'properly'. Previously she was just playing pieces she wanted to learn, but now is learning technique and doing scales. Who knows if it will lead to anything, but it is a great skill to have. She also continued dance at school, performed in Starstruck and has been working on various school pieces with friends.

      Beth has wound back her frantic pace this year, to study for the HSC. She was invited to play clarinet for the university wind orchestra early this year, so was playing for both the concert band and the wind orchestra but put aside the wind orchestra for the last half of the year. She played in the band for 'Chorus Line' also, but didn't get involved in any productions after that. The band championships were in Melbourne this year, the concert band retained their title as junior A grade champions, and the wind orchestra became open grade champions. It is a nice reward to Beth for the effort she puts in. It really is a mystery how she will go in the HSC. She is not an academic soul, but worked hard and will probably surprise herself. The target is to do Communications studies at Newcastle uni next year, requiring a high TER. Fingers crossed, but with a lower TER she can do most of the units as part of an Arts degree, and transfer later if she does well so the results aren't critical.

      Joanne has spent a drifting year, not really knowing what she wants to do. Ryan started an architecture degree but decided it wasn't for him and quit, then did a bar course and has had a number of part time barman jobs. He is now also working in a garage for a couple of nights. Joanne continues with her weekend Caltex job, and has also been providing after school care for our next door neighbour's children. This means we see her most days, which is good. She did a secretarial course in the first half of the year, and has done calligraphy for the second half. This and her jobs keeps her busy, so much so she says she doesn't have time to sit down. She and I have also been dabbling in yoga, we started going to a class on friday evening but the guy running it left town. The last school term we went to a beginners' class on tuesday evenings. It does seem to be a beneficial exercise, we haven't decided but will probably find another class to join now the beginners' class is finished.

      Joanne plans to apply for jobs on cruise ships. It seems these come up at short notice so she has to be prepared to drop whatever she is doing and go. In preparation for this, she and Ryan are leaving their flat when the lease runs out in three weeks, Ryan is going home to Yamba and Joanne is returning here. Unfortunately, they have accumulated worldly goods and Joanne wants some of them to come home too. The spare room is no longer spare but bare, soon to filled to overflowing.

      This year I thought it would be nice if Poss and I had a common interest, so we went to dancing classes for the first term. It was fun, but when it finished we don't seem to have got round to using all this new found knowlege. Maybe it was because at the same time I started playing bridge, and am now playing two nights a week. I learned about 14 years ago in Armidale, played for about a year then dropped it because of other pressures. Well, Lee Andrews (who played in Armidale) asked last christmas if I played, and put the idea in my head. Thanks Lee, although I'm not sure Poss feels the same way. What with bridge and yoga, there isn't much week left.

      Poss says she's had a good year. Part of that I think is because income finally exceeds outflow by a small margin. It makes a difference to support two children rather than four. The house got painted, it's gone from baby poo brown with yellow trim, to light grey with blue trim. Not that anyone can notice, the front yard jungle just about blocks any view from the street, and when you live in a house, you don't tend to look at the outside much. But it's nice to know it looks good and even nicer to know it won't rot and fall down for a few years. The next plan is to pave round the swimming pool, with luck it will happen early next year.

      Poss continues with her volleyball and tennis and a full schedule of house cleaning. She has been well but is not happy with her HRT, and has decided (in consultation with her doctor) to stop and see what happens. Now we know she can go iron deficient, I'm sure she will notice any changes and compensate for them. She has grown her hair long, as it used to be when we first met. It looks good on her, I was always a sucker for girls with long hair, the trend to the close cropped style does nothing for me.

      Nothing much has changed, we have the same cars, the same cat, and haven't made any major purchases. However my renewed interest in electronics payed some dividends, we are now a 4 VCR household. The 3 extra videos cost a total of $150 to buy and perhaps $30 to fix. One of them was quite old, given to us, but all it needed was a good clean and a $2.50 idler wheel. I am currently tackling an amplifier for a friend (and have been doing so for a year now, his cat peed in it, and it has some problems. Most have been fixed but I need another amplifier to tackle the last part). The second amplifier is another project underway, parts strung about but not finished (are you surprised?). Then there are a number of computer bits - printers, monitors and computers which are being throw away. Spare time? what's that!

      In what spare time there has been, I have been renewing my interest in playing guitar. I have borrowed some elementry classical guitar books, and purchased a few songbooks. And I did the big one, bought a new guitar. It is a Maton, very nice. Considering its predecessor cost $17 and I've had it for 30 years, an upgrade was due. Who knows, it might be another car next year.

      What of the future? I have 10 weeks holiday owing at the moment, and will get 4 weeks plus 6 weeks long service this year (yes folks, 10 years in September since we moved to Newcastle). I also have some frquent flyer points which expire in July. We were planning to do a time share swap to go to Tasmania, but we find there doesn't appear to be a reciprocating time share place in Tas, so it will have to be somewhere else. Of course, we could pay our way but then the pool won't get paved. Decisions, decisions ... stay tuned.

Poss, Nicole, Beth, Klu the cat(still with us), Joanne, Sandra, and Alan