Dear People,

Poss and I hope you are being festive in the festive season, and the fun continues in 2016.

It feels like it has been a groundhog year - although plenty has happened we are in the same place as this time last year. No one has moved house in Newcastle, and there are no extra grandchildren. The front veranda/balcony is still unfinished. No new vehicles. No deaths in our closest circle of family and friends.

Of course things have changed, as I was reminded by a recent birthday card. Twenty ways to tell you are getting older: No. 9 - conversations often turn into 'duelling ailments'. So true. Looking through the calendar for the last year the word 'Doctor' appears frequently. Just after sending last years greetings I went for an echocardiogram, which showed some anomalous heart behaviour. Nothing considered urgent, so nearly a month later I had a stress test with electrocardiogram, which also showed anomalous heart behaviour. To resolve this, six weeks later I had a Sestamibi scan heart which unfortunately didn't resolve anything. The final test in the diagnostic armoury is an angiogram, which I had mid March. The surgeon was expecting to encounter some blockage of the heart arteries, which he could alleviate by inserting one or two stents. To his dismay, it turned out all the major arteries were significantly blocked, and the only recourse was to bypass them. Suddenly there was urgency, as I was a heart attack waiting to happen. So a week later I had coronary artery bypass grafting of four major arteries.

The operation left my body in a bit of a mess, and required quite a long rehabilitation. Poss took care of me better than I deserve, and Hunter Health have a rehabilitation section not far from where we live. It took a few months to get functioning again, then the dentist decided I needed an impacted wisdom tooth removed. Back to hospital for another operation. Fortunately not major, and now I feel just as good (well, a little better) than before the operations and life is back on track. The surprising thing was there were no significant symptoms before the bypass operation. If it were not for my GP being cautious the problem may never have surfaced, or I died from a heart attack. Instead, I've lost a bit of weight, and become much more aware of what I eat.

The operation and rehab put a major dent in renovation activities. The veranda construction is nearing the three year mark and it is only in the last month we can access the balcony via a door. Removing the upstairs front window and replacing it with a doorway was a major step, as there was a period with just a big hole. It required time with us at home and reasonable weather. Because the house is over 100 years old, nothing is square or level, and each added piece has to be custom fitted to the existing frame so it was not a one hour job. We are now in a position to order louvres for beside the doorway, hopefully tomorrow.

Poss is, as in previous years, doing grandma duties for Joanne's family. The children did the school shuffle this year, Anna to Year 2, Emily from preschool to kindergarten, and Lucy to preschool on Thursdays. So now grandma duty is looking after Lucy on Wednesdays, and after preschool on Thursdays. Poss also finished her ironing job on Tuesdays, so she is relaxing in the luxury of extra time on her hands. She still has her cleaning job Mondays and Fridays, and likes it enough that she isn't in a hurry to finish it up. Maybe in 2017 when she becomes a pensioner, or 2018 when Lucy starts school.

Little has changed in Sandra's life. She is grinding away at her degree, still living in the same house at the end of the street. She is looking forward to next year, Michael's father Adam is moving to a nearby suburb, and Michael will transfer to a school within walking distance of both parents (and us). Currently Sandra's school run is a round trip of 40km twice a day, so it will save quite a bit of travel in peak hour, and Sandra does not enjoy driving. It will probably work out well for Michael also, as he will be living in the same area as his classmates.

Joanne is intending to do a postgraduate course by distance education with Charles Sturt University, specialising in education of children up to five years old. As part of her library job she has been running children's programs, and really enjoys it, so wants to learn more. I have no idea how she will fit it in, the three children have busy schedules with many after school activities. Anna is taking an interest in science, I took her to a talk and book signing with Karl Kruszelnicki. He is an amazing ambassador for the sciences. We bought the book and as he was signing it for Anna, he talked for quite a while and gave her his card. He said to her any time the school could arrange a video conference with him, he would talk to her class, and also donate books to the school library. Anna was so excited. And I believe the conference has been arranged.

Beth and Steve are much the same, in the same house for over a year. Steve is back working at Coco Monde, where he worked for a time before they moved to Canberra. He is head chef for the restaurant, with the owner running the chocolateria side of the business. Beth predictably quit the job she started when they arrived back in Newcastle, and is now filling two part time positions. She finds this to her liking, as the dynamics of the two restaurants are quite different, and she claims pays better than one job. She enjoys the variety, and so far has shown no inclination to move on.

Andrew and Nicole have moved, from Coburg to East Ivanhoe. They were sharing a house, but Nicole is now seven months pregnant so renting a place of their own made sense. Andrew works in Ivanhoe, within walking distance, and Nicole has started maternity leave early on doctor's advice. Poss and I loaded up a trailer of baby gear, mainly from Joanne but with many contributions from others, and took it to Melbourne. Their rental is a dwelling at the back of a shop, completely independent with access from a rear lane. It would be large enough for most couples but they are not most couples and have lots of stuff. So much stuff that we couldn't sleep there and unload the trailer. So the trailer remained loaded for the two nights we stayed, sleeping on a blow up mattress we brought with us. The morning we left, the trailer was unloaded into the mattress space. It is fortunate babies start off small, it will be interesting to see how baby v. stuff turns out. On the return journey we stayed a night at a B&B in Beechworth. Poss knew the town well from childhood holidays and day trips, I had not been there before. A very pretty place and a few hours was not enough to see even the good bits, but we had to leave the next morning for the long trek home.

It was our second visit to Melbourne, we were there in February for a party to celebrate Ted Baarda's 70^th birthday. It was hosted by David and Elizabeth Holland, and was an excuse to gather people many of whom had not seen each other since University days. There was much reminiscing of the 'good old days'. We stayed a few extra days and caught up with more people including Andrew and Nicole, and my daughter Emma. Then to the Latrobe Valley staying with my almost cousin Jill, to catch up with relatives from my mother's side of the family. We drove to Walhalla for a day, an old gold mining town that almost died but appears to be recovering as people establish weekenders in the remaining houses, and the tourist trade is on the rise. We travelled on the restored railway to the Thompson River and back, something I wanted to do in 2011 but we didn't have the time. It is a slow and noisy journey, but very interesting and pretty, winding down the very narrow Stringers Creek gorge.

We did the usual July run up to the time share in Coolangatta, this time Joanne and the three girls joined us for a few days. We all enjoyed ourselves, so we may do it all again in years to come. There were a few other highlights for the year, a trip up the coast to see the Swans in a pre season game at Coffs Harbour, a weekend at Bathurst to see their gardens, and a few visitors staying a day or two.

While I was still recovering, I designed and built a GPS synchronised sidereal clock. I don't have a use for a sidereal clock, it is something for astronomers. For me it was more like an extended game of Sudoko, good exercise for the brain but it's more about the journey than the outcome. It was published in an electronics magazine, they were impressed enough to give me a $150 voucher, but I haven't heard that anyone has used the design. I thought there would be some interest, as the parts were less than $25, much cheaper than anything else on the market.

Our day to day life is pretty much unchanged. There was a period where I was unable to do the usual things but Poss upheld the family honour in the social arena. Another social hiccup occurred when the pub where we did trivia on a Wednesday night was sold, and no longer ran trivia. Our team (us and another couple) were not prepared to give up our trivia night, so tried a few other Wednesday trivia venues. None were satisfactory so after consulting the Tuesday eat out group, we swapped eat out night and trivia night. This works well as some restaurants are closed Tuesday and open Wednesday, so we have new venues to peruse. Sunday still sees us take to the tennis court for a hit and miss, although the weather has not been kind. Many Sundays it was raining, or the court too wet for play. The volunteer planting has also been a bit hit and miss, we were away some months and at least one month the weather was too severe for planting. Other volunteer days were allocated to other activities, such as a family day, and a 'welcome to shorebirds' day. There isn't the drive to establish new plantings that there was before National Parks took over the area, we do more maintenance of exisiting planted areas.

We are looking forward to Christmas morning. Nicole and Andrew are staying a couple of nights on their way to the Woodford Folk Festival, so Poss invited the rest of the family to have breakfast here. Fortunately it doesn't clash with other plans, so we will be together for the first time in many years.

We will head up the coast this week to catch up with Poss's mum and the rest of the family. Poss rings Dawn every Saturday, and the others are all on Facebook, so we are abreast of the news, but it is nice to catch up face to face. Dawn seems to have settled happily into single life, and involves herself in the activities of the retirement village. After Christmas Poss intends to go to Melbourne when Nicole's baby is born, probably early February. Apart from that, we have no firm plans for the future.

That's it folks, another year of nothing in particular. Considering the problems in much of the world, we think that's not a bad outcome. Here's to another peaceful, healthy and productive year ahead. Please feel free to drop in any time. Or Facebook, email, letter, SMS or phone calls, not as good as face to face but love to hear from you in any way that suits. With love to you all.

Alan and Poss xx

P.S. The printer needed a new cartridge so this went to print much later than intended. We did catch up with Poss's family. I did order the louvres.