New Years Eve

Spent New Years Eve with Tegan & Christian, Viv and Phoebe... at their house. Was a bit of fun with Phoebe keeping us all amused... Christian and Tegan went off to a party some place later in the night so we saw the new year in with Viv and Phoebes ... spur of the moment but worked out well for all.

NYE

Tegan on NYE 

Styan Christmas

Tony & Helen sent me some pics from their Christmas Day celebrations. Here is the whole family group ... Tony and Helen, Jessica , Jared and Bethy. It sure was good to see the pics of the family and their festivities.

Looks like they had a fun time too.

Christmas Day 2005

Christmas day was first a visit to the Bayliss house, buzzing with life probably spurred on by little miss Phoebe's excitement.

There are some photos here

With full house of Bayliss and the addition of Tegan's friends Jodie and Nick this was a fun way to spend Chistmas morning. I even had a few spare moments with Erin to play a game Soduku on Viv's new toy. I tried to teach Phoebe to wink but she just produced a slow blink. I also teased her with some cat noises.

Also visited Alex after that: despite some more difficulties with this wrist over the week he was at least resting today, after a hectic Chirstmas Eve.

After a delicious turkey and cranberry lunch, headed off to the Rosnells for a late afternoon / early evening visit.

Christmas Eve 2005

After Erin surprised us with her flying visit, she decided to join us for a Christmas Eve gathering with Nic & Lisa. After picking her up from St Marys I took the first trip on the new M7 to Brookvale.

Just to pay the gals back for Lisa's surprise return from the USA, Erin hid down in the back seat and only appeared when I invited the gals to have a seat in the back of the car for the journey to lunch. Well there were screams of joy and reunion that echoed around Brookvale for hours.

Then it was on to the North Ryde RSL for a Yum Cha where Poh See, Sukkha and James were patiently waiting with Andrew, Miho and Lisa.

The yum cha was excellent as is the view from the large open glass windows which overlook the river, bridge and the Epping & Mowbray Road intersection.

After many bamboo baskets of food and much christmas chatter, we collected James and Lisa from the Kids World and enjoyed a coffee downstairs before returning to Nicole's flat for an exchange of pressies.

Back home via the M7 .... fast .....and cheap well at least till mid January.

There are more photos here

ASCII art

This time of year in the old ISTC and Telex exchange we would be sending out ASCII art tapes to all the overseas stations... I was reminded of this by Greg Martyn of PixelITT in his reply to my Christmas message this year lamenting the demise of "telex art" . ... so I found a site that commemorates this arcane greeting form, click here , for more art.

Greg Martyn

,--.
() / _/______\_
(__________)
(/ @ @ \)
(`._,()._,')
( `-'`-' )
\ /
\,,,,,,/

Erin returns

Erin dropped in for a surprise visit but I caught a pic of her on the way out to lunch at the Ori.

The Christmas decorations are great backdrop to this pic that I managed to grab with the phone cam.

Chand & Erin on the front stairs.

Santa on the firetruck

Santa flashed past on the fire truck today a quick visit but with the reduced number of kids in the street did not pause for long.

this is a great tradition and we always head out onto the balcony to give santa a wave... Merry Christmas !!

Christmas Lights

Finally the Christmas lights went up and Santa is there with his sleigh.

I pulled down the old star lights that illuminated the front verandah for many years, but were showing signs of repeated repair from Cockatoo attack. I have even relented, on the purity of white light and put up multicoloured lights and purple LED chasing flashers.

Rostrum Christmas

I attended the Rostrum Club 18 christmas function at the Indigo on Capitol Restaurant in the Metro Hotel (the old RG Hotel).

Noah reigned over the beasts braying for a place on the ark, an innovate round robin exercise from John (Noah) Deakin [aka Dung Beetle] that had is all in stitches.

I think Robert (Cockatoo) Cornege topped off the Short Speeches with his excellent melding of all three topics into his passion for golf.

I was served up for dessert with a censure motion about my "word of disloyalty to the Crown" at the last Christmas gathering. Fortunately, after extensive debate, handled most deftly by Mr Paul (Brolga) Barbero, I succeed in having the motion quashed as specious, frivolous and unconstitutional, being merely an expression of the right speak freely, even in sedition conscious modern Australia.

I especially enjoyed seeing old sparring partners Rod (Tom Cat) Toombs, Ray (Bandicoot) Barbero, Alan (Caribou) Cabrera, Kevin (Rhinoceros) Reid, Sonley (Jackal) Johnstone and Duyet(Llama) le Van. Sharon (Hyena) Hurst held her head high in the beastly company of the male orators, always good to see her with the group.

there are more photos here

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I was delighted to meet up with Sarah at Central Railway and have her company on the return journey to the mountains.

Tai Chi Christmas Lunch Springwood

Today was the end-of-year function for the Springwood Group of Syndey Vision Tai Chi. We were 21 for lunch at the Springwood Bowling Club for turkey and christmas pudding.

Alex, sporting and bright green covered wrist plaster, distributed participation certificates to those that atteneded classes in 2005.

More photos here.

Canberra Family Christmas 2005

The annual family Christmas in Canberra went over well this year. A little reduced in numbers with Mark and Rox not attending but the food was delicious and a good time had by all.

Once again we held the gathering in the Woden Southern Cross Club.

Kim, James and Poh See
share a laugh

Testing Chi

Thats me standing on the crazy Tai Chi teacher, Alex Galvan. I am occasionally used to demonstrate the chi that can be generated in the body by the exercises that we are training in.

Photo by Brain Felton
Springwood Civic Centre.

ABHS & AGHS on the web

Asquith Boys and Girls High Schools now both have home pages on the web. Click on the badges to go to the current sites.

There is also a homepage of the ABHS pioneer year. This page contains class photos of that year, and the teachers of 1961. There are also photos of their 2004 reunion at Avondale Gold club.

The Asquith Boys High School song is also there in midi form as a backing track for the next time you want a challenge at karaoke. "on playing fields where now we run .... " .. does anyone have the original words?

Viv's Birthday

Today was viv's birthday so we took her to the Cafe Pazar for a vegeterian turkish lunch. Tegan finally twigged that it was her mum's birthday so she called up and came on over with Pheobe & Christian to celebrate with us.

Phoebe & Viv at Cafe Pazar

Alex at the carrington

Early Sunday morning Tai Chi at Carrington Place .. Thats Alex in front. 

viv's day

Phoebe, Tegan and Viv at cafe Pazar, Lawson for viv's celebration 

viv's birthday

Vivs birthday at Cafe Pazar, Lawson

 

ABHS AGHS reunion

I went to the Asquith Boys High School (ABHS) and Asquith Girls High School (AGHS) reunion. This was organised by Stephen and Lesley Morcom and held a the Asquith Bowling Club.

I spent most of the night chatting with Al Pog, Brian Crickitt, Peter Achterstraat and Mal Smith. It was great to catch up as it has been over 30 years since we last saw each other for a decent chat.

I also met Anne (nee Carruthers) who I also hadn't seem for ages, it was good to catch up on the news from Berowra. Her hubby Peter was working at the club on the night too.

Click here to see a few photos that I have put up from the reunion.