Sylvia and Frank now in Skenes Creek!: Christmas and just after

We had a lovely Christmas Eve evening with Carol and Stephen and Deborah, Bill and Johanna. It was great to see them all again and I was amazed at how tall Johanna has become. She has just finished Year 11 and looks quite the young lady - no photos though I am afraid.

Christmas Day was pretty quiet. We collected Dad from St Georges around 11.30am and took him for a bit of a scenic drive but he wasn't having a particularly "with it" day and didn't even seem interested in the number of the cargo ships out at sea. We took him back to Matt and Erin's place for lunch but he didn't seem very hungry and just picked at lunch. He seems to struggle to recall what a fork is for these days. We took him back to St Georges around 2.30pm and settled him down on the couch in front of the TV. His friend Pauline had gone to her family for dinner. Frank and I then went for a walk along the sea front in Williamstown. We were surprised to see how many people were having BBQs in the park and along the foreshore. We had walked a fair distance and so treated ourselves to an ice cream before going back to Matt and Erin's. For dinner we knocked together a rather salty stir fry with the left over chicken from lunch.

Boxing Day was the van der Peet family Christmas out in Kallista at Eric and Liz's place this year. It was a lovely day, the weather was very kind and the turn out was good. 24 in all including Jason and Yafed's twins Ziggy and Jagger who we hadn't seen before although they are now nearly three! Frank's Mum and Dad even managed to make it despite the fact that Frank's Dad has broken ribs from falling off the step ladder trying to fix a blind. I think Eric and Liz probably heaved a sigh of relief when we all left. A couple of photos this time. A rather nice photo of Mara, Phill, Erin and Matt taken under the new pergola at the back of Eric's.

Then Matt took a rather good shot of Frank not being immodest but actually sporting the label off a hot serving plate!

Matt and Erin came back to Halls Gap with us and Matt kindly lent Phill and Mara their car. Phill and Mara drove up to Halls Gap to join us on the Sunday so when I got home from work they were all sitting on the front verandah enjoying the view and a cold beer.

On Monday we all went up to Summerday Valley for a spot of climbing and Matt took some more great photographs including one of a very cute bug.