December 2013

Happy New Year! It’s not too late to say that yet, is it?……it is?…..Oops, sorry. How about: Happy Back To Work Week! Whoo!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and trust that Santa brought you everything you wanted and/or asked for.  Christmas Day for me was a very much a family affair which makes a change from being the token orphan for the majority of Christmases.  But I managed a cold lunch at my sister Anne’s with about 14 of us and a hot dinner at Jen’s (my other sister) with 7 of us.  I got to have Christmas pudding twice…woohoo! I then spent the next 4 days vegetating on the couch…..brilliant!  I watched a few DVD’s, some good and some not so good….don’t bother with the Heat (Sandra Bullock), so not funny.  I have however been transfixed by The Tudors which was a TV series a few years ago about Henry VIII.

New Year’s Eve was a relatively quiet affair with the usual suspects gathering at Kay and David’s and wandering down to Brighton Beach for the 9.30pm fireworks.  I had huge plans to get up before sunrise on New Year’s Day and go down to the beach to take sunrise photos.  I did actually manage to crawl out of bed after 2.5 hours sleep and got to the beach in time, only to open the car door and be inundated with small flies.  Given the lack of sleep, I wasn’t in the mood and moved on to another beach where they were no better.  My sense of humour failure and the distinct lack of inspiration due to a northerly wind creating a chop on the ocean saw me give up on making photos.  So I drove to Henley Beach, parked my car, jumped on my pushie and rode to Mum and Dad’s for breakfast.  Unfortunately, it was only 7.30am (a bit earlier than I realised) and woke them up….so much for their sleep in.

My birthday on the 2^nd was fairly laid back, nothing too stressful, lunch and dinner and very enjoyable.  Thanks to everyone for pressies and birthday wishes.

Early in the month Kath had a girls evening at her place and it was nice to catch up with yet more people that I haven’t seen in years. After helping me move into the house in Sept, I realised that Mum and Dad hadn’t seen the house in any semblance of order and decided it was about time to have them over for dinner…..which thankfully, they survived. I had my sisters and my two oldest nieces over for breakfast on Christmas Eve which was lovely.  We’ve all decided I should do it more often and to forgo the bacon and eggs and just concentrate on croissants.  For a month that is renown for parties and socialising, December was a surprisingly quiet.

I had my final violin lesson and I briefly considered doing the course again in February but have come to the conclusion that there is no latent Andre Rieu or Nigel Kennedy talent waiting to be discovered and there is a world of difference between a flute played badly and violin played badly.  But I can play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Ode to Joy albeit extremely slowly and considerably scratchily (not sure if that’s a word but Word hasn’t underlined it, so I guess it must be).

With my fixation on all things Venice, I’m currently reading a newly released book on Venice’s history.  Now I’m not a history person at all and there are parts of the book that put me to sleep but once they get into the looting and pillaging, it gets really interesting.  I’m amazed at how much I’m learning and it’s nice being able to picture the places they are talking about.

I managed to get to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty which was really good.  I had high hopes for the film although was a little apprehensive because I am not a Ben Stiller fan in the least but he’s was really good and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie even though it wasn’t quite as life altering as it made out, in that it didn’t speak to me in the same manner as The Way (Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez).

To keep this one relatively short, I’ll do the Annual Review separately and endeavour to put up some photos too.