Australia Day this year is a relatively quiet one for our family. Christina is on afternoon shift at the hospital and I'm home alone watching tennis and doing some tasks about the house, including monitoring some turkey legs getting cooked in our slow cooker.
Shortly I'm going over to our son, Dale's place for a beer (just one, since I'm driving) and to console him a bit as his car was set ablaze by some hoons recently and is a wipe off. What pleasure do these people get destroying someone's property?
My son's not a millionaire and, although the vehicle was insured, he'll not get back in cash what the utility value of it was.
On Saturday evening we have a late Australia Day celebration with friends which should compensate for the slowness of the actual day ... today.
My father was born on Australia Day and when I was a young fellow he told me we got a public holiday to celebrate it. For an hour or two, I'm sure I believed him. He would have been 92 today had he not died too early.
As the chorus our National Anthem states, "Advance Australia Fair."
Robin
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Christmas Day 2009 at the Henrys'
Apart from grandson Tory Muller, this is our whole family. Christina and I are orphans and I have no brothers or sisters. Christina has a brother.
We were enjoying one of our occasional family breakfasts when we all gather at my house and have a brunch (half way between breakfast and lunch). Usually it's pancakes, coffee, juice, fruit, and perhaps a cup of coffee. Sometimes we have bacon and eggs with tomatoes on toast, but as this was Christmas Day and we were heading to the Crowne Plaza Hotel for Christmas dinner, we had light pancakes with a bit of mixed fruit and as the morning progressed the girls had champagne and Dale and I had a YUPPIE beer called a Crownie.
At 11:40 we departed for the Crowne Plaza Hotel for our fabulous lunch of seafood, a variety of warm and cold meats, salad, vegetables and six or seven different types of sweet including cheese cake, my favourite.
We had a lovely day, didn't eat or drink too much and after lunch lazed about watching some videos before cranking up the barbecue again, this time to cook some tiger prawns that had been sent down from Darwin. We had a light dinner of salads, prawns, (shrimps to some of you) and cold meat and eventually fizzled out at 9 pm.
If you celebrated Christmas Day, we hope you had as nice a day as we did.
Robin
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Grandson Tory Jet Muller Turns 8!
If I hadn't experienced it, I would have said there was no way Tory could have turned eight.
Why, it seems like only yesterday that we rocked up at the Midwifery Unit at the Alice Springs Hospital to see what millions of years of genetic history had presented us; A healthy boy with unexpected blue eyes and an elongated head from his vacuum (Ventouse) delivery.
Interestingly, both his grandmothers are midwives and were working at the Alice Springs Hospital during the birth.
Although it seems like yesterday (as these things do), much water has passed under the bridge in the last eight years. (See him in the photo with his school mates and mum while cutting his birthday cake).
Tory has been fortunate enough during that time to visit the United Arab Emirates twice, to visit Thailand, Singapore and a number of Australian destinations. Much more travel than I had done by that age, although I did move to and live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya between the ages 7 and 10.
He plays soccer, cricket, baseball and more. In the near future I'm going to introduce him to squash and maybe one day he will volunteer to be my golf caddy.
Tory tends to be a bit wild and wooly at times, but that's healthy for an eight year old. We get on well and I'm looking forward to many years of companionship including having a beer with him in a hotel somewhere on or shortly after 24 November 2019 when he reaches legal age.
As one of my colleagues from Al Ain Women's College wrote after his email signature, "If I had known grandchildren were so much fun, I would have had them first."
Hmmm, but I would have missed many wonderful years seeing my daughter and son reach adulthood.
Stay well.
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