As I write, it is New Years Eve. It has been a busy and eventful December with highlights and tribulations. Sounds just like a normal month really. The month started and finished with the Test matches of course. Highlights, if, in fact you are Australian. Not so good if you are English. We await the last Test in Sydney hopeful that the Whitewash will be accomplished. We Ozzies do like beating England at anything but especially the cricket.

Lauren-Jane turned 11 at beginning of the month. Two paries for that. First at Icerink with 7 of her friends. All on ice including Dad, whose feet still hurt I did skate at Murrayfield for years, but had no skates on since I don't know when!!! I survived and quietly enjoyed myself. "Oh Look LJ's dad can really skate"!!! said her friends. Next day was the Family 'do' here at our place. Very warm so BBQ on deck with lots of "Coolades" for adults and lots of cold softies for the kids. All enjoyed that.

Later in the week was the dreaded school breakup concert, I sat through that. It was outside and got very very cold (I only had T shirt on). Said to LJ at finish "Lets go I'm very cold" to which she replied 'But Dad, your Scottish you don't feel the cold"!!! Well that night I did!.

We also had Robbie Williams here and Elton John a few nights later. Kim went to both concerts. I child minded! Robbie had 60,000+ at football park, Elton 10,000+ at Entertatainment centre. Robbie's concert was terrific. He told the audience at the end that they had rekindled his enthusiasm for touring and concerts such had been their response to him. Mind you I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing! Kim really enjoyed both, that being the objective I suppose. She still has entry bracelet on her wrist! a bit like I'm not washing that hand again!!!

It has, in the main, continued to be very hot over the month although was only 18C on Christmas Day. Nice temperature. for cooking turkey! We have also had some good rain but not nearly enough. Tougher new restrictions come in on New Years Day. On Christmas Eve we went to Lobethal for their Christmas Pageant. Lobethal is a small town 30 minutes from Adelaide and every year at this time they have a Festive Lights display 95% of houses are decorated with Christmas lights and thousands make the trip to drive through and see them all. This culminates in the Pageant a day or so before Christmas. My Mother-in-Law's house is on the main street and has a raised verandah. Gives us a great view of everything. We make a night of it, almost a Pageant Party. Once again it was very succesful.

On sport once again. Brazil's Romario has just completed a 4 game stint as a guest player with Adelaide United. It was an overall success although he did not score as many goals as he (and we) would have liked. Adelaide is now second in the league. That partly being due to Sydney (coached by Terry Butcher) being docked points for breaching the league's salary cap.

A minor (but not at the time) personal tribulation happened the other day. We had a power failure which was eventually isolated to my Beer Fridge! Calamity! Electrician managed to sort it out and fix it the next day. But for a moment or three I thought oops!!! Still, alls well that ends well and beer is now very nicely cold again. I'm not entirely selfish though Kim's Champagne (we are supposed to call it Sparkling!!) shares the fridge so she was concerned also!!.

Being the Christmas season we have had a few special "Do's" We had breakfast with our Dinner Party Group at the Hyatt, a tradition of ours, which we all enjoy. Kim and I also got all tizzied up to attend my work christmas dinner at Entertainment Centre. Next door neighbour (Rod) took us down in our car--He dressed as Chauffiuer for the occassion! Got quite a response as he opened car doors for us on our arrival. Just a bit of extra fun. We also had Neighbours' Chrissie drinks at Rods' the Friday before Chrismas. Very good night and not far to stagger, oops, I mean walk home.

Bushfires continue to rage around the country, many of them, sadly, lit by people!
W e are off to a place called Anglesea in Victoria for a week just after New Year. It is a beautiful small town at the end of the Great Ocean Road, which itself is a wonderful drive. We will enjoy both.

Until next time

A happy New Year to you all.

(article by Eric Ford, Australia)