28 Kendall St.,
      Charlestown NSW 2290
      8th. December 2002
     

Dear People,

      Greetings and best wishes from our lot to your lot. I hope you’ve had a good year and are looking forward to more of the same or even better next year. For those of you touched by the drought, the fires, the Bali bombing, or any other of life’s setbacks, let’s hope for a better future. As I type, the smell of bushfires is heavy in the air, and the countryside is pleading for water. I’m sure many of you in Australia will have ‘rain’ at the top of your Christmas wish list.

      For us, this was a year of significant birthdays. Poss’s father (Norm) turned 80, Poss turned 50, Joanne turned 25 and Beth is 21. Apart from that, the year passed with hardly a ripple. No big trips away, no life changing events. The girls are still with last year’s partners, and almost in the same places of residence. That’s perhaps a good thing, but might not make compelling copy for a Christmas letter.

      Sadly it’s also the year when my favourite uncle passed away, in February. I ‘inherited’ my name from him (he is Harold Alan but always called Alan), and also the last surviving blood relative of my parents’ generation. Uncle Alan/aunt Phyllis and my parents sent the same Christmas card back and forth every year since 1949, with an alternate card added in 1952 (they cross in the mail). When my mum died, I was honoured to continue the tradition. Although only a few lines are added each year, there are now many added sheets with a condensed history of two families. I’m hoping the cards keep going, our loved ones live on in our memories.

      It looks like I have entered the grey area of employment, not unemployed and not full time. The project I worked on before Christmas last year was a dud. It centred on Department of Housing contracts to the building industry. In December ‘01 the good old DOH asked everyone to retender for the contracts, and didn’t renew them with our target businesses. Also it took them many months to make their choice, leaving us and the businesses in limbo. Noone wanted a package if they weren’t going to get a contract to use it with. Consequently the project was canned in December, with little likelihood of revival.

      January to June was a non event, with only a few hours work. In June, my old CSC boss, who is now the manager of the Information Technology section of a local building society, asked if I could help out with some upgrades they were doing. This has evolved into a 20-30 hour/week casual arrangement that is ongoing. I also wrote some courseware for an IT course, not sure how this went at this stage but it would be good work as it can be done anywhere at any time. So what have I been doing in my spare time? Funny you should ask, Poss asked the same. Some shelves and drawers in the garage, and some self training in Linux (a computer operating system) seems the only constructive outcomes. But it was great to have time to do nothing but relax.

      It is an indication of advancing years that health is an issue. It says something when you admit to owning your own blood pressure monitor. A couple of years ago Poss had high blood pressure, a surprise as historically she had low blood pressure. Her work in the gym paid dividends in ’01 with a 10kg loss and normal blood pressure with a little medication. She stopped working in the gym a few months ago because of a sore arm, and began physio instead. A few weeks after the sore arm episode, I came down with ‘can’t-sit-down-itis’, eventually diagnosed as prostititis on the basis of “it isn’t this and it isn’t that so it is probably prostititis”.

      It looked like both of us needed exercise, so we started morning walks once I was on the mend. This currently involves getting up at obscenely early hours (about 5:45 at the moment) and walking anywhere from 3 to 8 km. This has the desired health effect, Poss is seeing how she goes with no blood pressure medication (good so far) and my whateveritwasitis seems to have cleared up. And I’ve taken over doing the arm physio, no idea what I’m doing but the physio said the arm was improving after two weeks. Apart from that, we have all been well except for the seemingly mandatory round of ‘flu. We and the girls all went through it at some stage, but fortunately with no lasting effect.

      Sandra changed jobs early in the year. She and Adam moved in February from our house in Islington back to Marks Point which meant Sandra was back to a 50 minute either direction trip to Maitland. So she started work with solicitors in Newcastle city, a little closer and easier to get to. She was doing only conveyencing in Maitland, but now is doing a variety of work. She acquired an ancient Renault 16 for $400, which speeds the commuting and seems to be quite reliable despite its age. They are planning to do something next year, either go to England or buy a house. Adam graduated in law with honours and there is a chance he can get a scholarship to study in England, if not then the house is plan B.

      In last year’s letter, Joanne was looking to get good results in her librarian course, but not expecting more as she had been busy doing part time work and a subject at uni. So it was a surprise when she was awarded the TAFE medal for best result in the school of Information Technology (library studies being part of IT). There was an impressive presentation lunch with every politician in the Hunter valley and lots of TAFE flag waving and speech making. Joanne was even more impressed by the $1000 prize, an unexpected bonus.

      But she has decided to delay being a permanent librarian until she completes her uni course. So she is still working weekends at a garage, and casual librarian jobs during the week. She quit her previous garage job for one closer to home and more sociable hours. Unfortunately the hours are longer and the pay is less, so what she saved in travel goes in other ways. However she seems happy and that’s all that counts.

      Joanne’s penfriend Erin arrived from Canada on New Year’s eve, her introduction to Australia was the Sydney harbour fireworks viewed from a Kirribili apartment. From there, she and Joanne managed to get to Victoria, W.A and Stradbroke Island in the next seven weeks. They got on well together, fortuitous as they had not met before and it could have been otherwise. It seems Erin was suitably impressed with Australia, she is talking of coming again, bringing her partner.

      Beth completed her degree mid year. Her course was a little disorganised as she wanted to do communications studies but started doing arts as her high school results were not high enough. She was allowed to switch to communications studies after getting very good results in first year arts, so ended up doing a few extra subjects. She has not found work in her chosen field, but is not looking too hard. She is working part time in a hot bread shop and they have been giving her plenty of work as regulars are off sick or on holidays. Her plans are to get some unpaid work experience early next year so she can get a foot in the door, and see how it goes from there. Andrew intends to be a teacher, and has another year of study so it looks like they will be in town for another year at least.

      When Sandra and Adam moved out from the Islington house, Beth and Andrew moved in. This was good as we were wondering what to do with the place when S&A left. B&A are happy there, it is convenient to everything. But they are moving again in February as we want to start renovating. When we’ve finished the renovations, we will move there and probably sell this house (and be debt free for the first time in 30 years!)

      Nicole’s year has been academically a bit of a disaster, she was doing an IT course but didn’t like it. Mid year she switched to doing accounting and economics subjects with the intent of converting to a bachelor of business. But she didn’t like that either and is now at a total loose end. I don’t think she intends to continue at uni, hasn’t found anything else she wants to study, and doesn’t like the idea of working. I guess she’ll work it out eventually.

      Her social life however seems to have stabilised. After a brief parting of the ways, she and Chris her boyfriend of last year are together again. They are currently on the way back from schoolies week at the Gold Coast. Maybe Nic thought she was robbed when she didn’t get to schoolies after her own HSC, so I’m sure she will make up for it. She is still living at home, generally on good terms but sometimes the generation gap makes an appearance. Perhaps ‘living at home’ is overstating things, ‘principle abode’ might be more accurate…

      Poss and I are muddling on, she is still cleaning and we are still playing volleyball on a Friday night. I find the morning walk has forced a curtailment of night activities, it’s a pity we have to sleep as it is such a waste of time. We did camp out on ‘the block’ for a couple of days just after last Christmas. It was an experience! Very hot during the day, with cicadas shrilling unbelievably loud (and I’m a bit deaf) from 5:30 am to 8:30 pm. There were plenty of flying biting things, and it was too hot to hide in the tent. We spent most of the time walking around trying to locate ‘interesting’ areas. We had a GPS locator and discovered where the boundaries were and that we owned a whole lot of land we thought was part of the neighbouring block. Some intrepid person had put a fence along part of the boundary, quite ancient and now useless. The heat, dense scrub and steep country defeated our attempts to go North, we explored perhaps a third of the block.

      There were fires a few kilometres away, and although they didn’t get close the smoke and ash drifted in to remind us of how vulnerable we were – two Km from the nearest road and no open area to run to. So we packed up a day earlier than intended and headed off to Michelle’s for a shower and a soft bed. We did discover a number of watercourses (no water), and places where pools would be in a wet season. But we didn’t settle on a house site. This will be an exercise for another day it seems, at the moment Islington renovations take priority.

      Poss and I, Joanne and Scott, Beth and Andrew all trekked to Coalstoun Lakes for Norm’s 80th Birthday in May. Poss and I took it easy and took a few days each way but the others came in one day in Joanne’s car. It is a 12 hour drive and even with several drivers they were ready to kill at the end of the journey. The birthday bash went well; David, Norm and Dawn have been welcomed into the community and there were people loaning tents and helping to put them up, and we were invited to inspect a nearby peanut farm the next day. I’m guessing they are the first new blood to the area in quite a while.

      We will be doing the trip again for Christmas, but the children have opted out. Nic is working at the garage where Joanne used to work (not the same job), and is working Christmas and Boxing day. The others are also time constrained, Sandra and Adam were thinking about it but worked out it was going to cost about $3000 in airfares.

      Another noteworthy trip was to Canberra to see floriad, a huge planting of flowers. I’m not a Canberra fan, but floriad was worth the trouble. We did other touristy things but I was charmed more by Bungendore and Braidwood, small villiages on the way home, and lunch with friends in Moss Vale. It seems lately I appreciate the trip as much as the destination, especially if it involves visiting friends.

      Eldest daughter Emma has been busy. She and husband Todd were in London on holiday last Christmas, after working in Japan mid year. They are trying to make a living as jazz musicians, Todd plays a mean bass or piano (hard to do both at the same time) and Em sings. They rented their house for a year, so on return moved in with friends. They recorded a CD released in July (‘Love Rhapsody’ by Emma Sidney – web site www.emmasidney.com). They then went back to work in Japan, but something went wrong with the bookings. They only played a short time each night and ended up coming home early. However their airfare, accommodation and meals were paid, so it was more a holiday than work. They are back now, I wonder what are the latest developments.

      Vehicle stories – the trusty Datsun 200B is now the rusty 200B, it was retired to Michelle’s back paddock as a possible power source on ‘the block’ at some later stage. It had the only tow bar on our vehicles, and I didn’t realise how useful that was. So I’ve acquired an old Holden 1 ton truck in need of much TLC, with the desire to turn it into a work truck. However, the offer of work at the building society coincided with its purchase, so progress has been almost non existant to the exasperation of all. Beth recently acquired a ’93 Ford festiva in good condition, low km, for a good price, so she is our most recent car owner. The Peugeot and Pulsar continue to creak and rattle reliably on.

      Guess that’s enough to keep you going. As always, love to see any of you who come this way. Good fortune for the New Year.

The Cashins: Klu, Nicole, Beth, Joanne, Sandra, Poss and Alan.