Here we are at Mandurah, after a hell of a trip into southerly seas to get here for our Christmas dinner. Rob’s on the phone to Elly (with the sun setting in the background), and I’ve done what I can to decorate the boat:-)

This year we had our family Christmas early. Originally everyone was going to be away at Christmas so Rob and I decided we’d leave early for a Christmas on Dusky Dolphin. By the time we’d got organised everyone else was staying at home!

We had an early Christmas anyway, including a long, long iChat with Elwyn that included playing golf with her over the internet using Rob’s new Wii! You can see Elwyn on the computer screen.

Rob went shopping today, to get some long-needed electrical gear…he said it was my Christmas present…good thing I’ve got a sense of humour:-)

The 2 little Christmas horsies are gifts from Tom and Thea – they made them at Tom’s kindergarten today:-)

Tonight we had the first real taste of summer – luscious, ripe mango!

Yummm – something we look forward to every year, to be enjoyed with avocado and spicy barbecued chicken, all drizzled with fresh lime juice:-)

Today was the 40 year reunion of my class at high school. I haven’t been to many reunions, but felt called to this one.

The reasons worked out to be:

1. I caught up with 2 ladies with whom I’d been good friends. Why we lost contact with each other I don’t know, but they are lovely company and we’ll keep in touch.

2. 2.At times I stood back and listened to to group of them, and wondered why I’d never before realised what a delightful group of people they were…

3. 3.The class “bully” was there, who had given me (or had I chosen that?) so much grief when I was at school. Now a sad lady, mourning the loss of her younger sister who died from cancer last year, she is very angry and alone. When she told me about the loss of her sister my heart ached for her because she was still in deep grief. I reached out and touched her arm, looked her gently in the eyes, and said “I’m so sorry, D…”. For the first time ever she looked me in the eyes, let go the angry mask she keeps for the world, and said “Thank you”.
   And the spell was broken.

We celebrated Rob’s birthday last Sunday, although his actual birthday was not until today.

Elwyn and I had an idea some time ago for something that he could share with the family (and possibly friends) that would just be fun – a Wii with the new Tiger Woods golf game. So after we came back from the UK in early October I spoke to Elwyn and Jeanette about it. If I bought it, Jeanette offered to hide it at her place for “road testing”. So the day after someone ran into the back of their car, and they were house-bound, I arrived at Jeanette and Christopher’s with the Wii, the game, and other bits and pieces – good thing to take their minds off the trashed car!

In the meantime, I had to remember not to tell Rob, so he’d get a surprise. Hard work!

So last Sunday we all arrived at Jeanette and Christopher’s for a birthday morning tea. After chat, morning tea and little birthday cakes, Christopher gave Rob one of the games in its box, which confused him, then Jeanette led him around to where the Wii was set up, and got him playing the game. Of course Tom helped, and then Tristan. It was good to see them just relax:-)

On Rob’s birthday today, Blaine, Tom and Thea came for the night because Tristan was away with work. So when Rob came home from work, Tom very beautifully said “Happy Birthday, Pa”. That made Rob’s day.

Caught in his second-favourite corner of our house, this is Rob at his desk – the second photo I took with my first digital camera, bought so that I could take “happy snaps” like this one and use them for my blog:-)

The inset picture was the first one I took – of an extremely life-like model of Trim, Matthew Flinders’ ship cat, whom Tris and Blaine brought in Melbourne for us after we took care of the kiddliwinks while they had a “Phantom” weekend in Melbourne.

Rob and I spent a week on Dusky Dolphin, wandering around Cockburn Sound – protected waters just off our coast. One day this is what we saw, plus a navy frigate being “attacked” by fighter planes (we hoped it was a practice run)!

Other than that it was a very welcomely relaxed week:-)