Christmas Message 2024

 

Dear Friends

Life goes on in the beautiful Barossa where we are surrounded by thousands of hectares of leafy green vines at this time of year with the yellow fields of canola having recently disappeared. There's always something to see here. As I write, the sky is blue and it's a lovely 32 Celsius. Many tourists are flowing through Tanunda and nearby vineyards to pick up their Christmas-New Year beverages, and more.

The highlights of our year were:

1. our trip on Princess Cruises to Japan and a three-day tour after disembarking at Tokyo's Yokohama Port. Unfortunately, Christina contracted the dreaded COVID and was confined to our room for three port visits in Japan. Her isolation ended the day we reached Tokyo. We were annoyed that she didn't get isolated while we spent sea days of which there were quite a few. However, in every life a little rain must fall.
2. After seven years, our son Dale eventually managed to spend a couple of weeks with us after flying down from Alice Springs. Previously he had been unable to visit due to work commitments, so it was lovely to spend time with him at last and show him some wonders of the Barossa.
3. Grandson Tory qualified as an electrician picking up his practising licence. We were so proud and delighted that he will now be able to make a comfortable living.  
   

Christina & Meredith Shopping

We live in hope that either Dale or Meredith, preferably both, will be able to move closer to us in South Australia. It will be easier for Dale to move since he doesn't own his house. As you would expect, house sales in Alice Springs are down as scores leave the town and few take up positions due to the publicity about inordinate crime rates. Meredith would need to sell her house and find a job with a salary comparable to what she now earns working for a US company, a challenge.

Apart from Dale's car window being smashed a few weeks ago and Meredith being threatened by a tomahawk-wielding aboriginal kid standing outside her security fence, both seem to be happy and well.

Meredith is with us at present for Christmas and Dale will visit again during April 25. 

Christina has a heavy schedule of craft sessions - quilting, knitting, embroidery, and spinning with a lovely cohort of fellow craftswomen, one group of which has a several-hour session at our home and Robin gets to meet them. 

Dale & Christina Cooking

Because of her increased involvement with craft groups, Christina has not nominated for her RSL Tanunda Management Committee position where she volunteered for several years as treasurer and more recently, committee member. She's still a member of the RSL and will continue to volunteer on special fundraising days etc, but will have a reduced role. She deserves more time for herself.

Robin attends the Barossa Men's Shed some Thursdays and turns beautiful pieces of timber into other things. He has an almost full-time job as secretary of the RSL sub-branch and is engaged in a couple of other groups that meet for lunch or coffee at different places and dates. He wonders how he ever had time to go to work.

In 2025 Robin expects to have much of his time taken up with either (or both) radium therapy and chemotheraphy due to a recent diagnosis of prostate cancer that is aggressive and has spread to some bones and other parts of the body. He is to have his first appointment with an oncologist on Christmas Eve and at present is recovering from recent surgery by his urologist to take a biopsy and do a trans-uretheral resection (TURP) which is best described as a rebore.

Christina & Robin at Play

He's taking numerous tablets and has had sub-cutaneous stomach injections to decrease the testosterone that feeds the cancer. Who would ever have thought a guy didn't want testosterone? We learn something new every day. We both smiled when the doctor told Robin he won't be able to have any more babies.

Twenty-twenty-five promises to be a different year for us as we come to grips with our new reality but we are keeping positive. Robin is grateful for having had 77 excellent years without illness and for having a doting wife who just happens to have 50 years of very useful medical knowledge.

We hope this finds you well and happy, and that you have a wonderful Christmas with family and friends wherever that may be.

Love from The Henrys' of Tanunda