Presents From Australia

Yes, Christmas has come early for us with the arrival of our old friends, Kate, Rob and Scarlett. We have been eagerly anticipating their appearance for months and having not seen them for over 2 1/2 years when I opened the front door to greet Kate it seemed liked only yesterday.

Hugs and kisses were liberally shared all round as well as a meeting of the baby bumps too. It was incredible to see Scarlett, our Goddaughter who was only 3 months old when we first met her, now a fully fledged walking, talking little lady. You can tell she has her mothers traits as she has an array of hilarious facial expressions and the inheritance of the whoopie cushion has obviously had an effect on her sense of humour too.










We spent the first day putting up our Christmas Tree whilst singing along to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin belting out Christmas numbers in their inevitable crooning style. What made this so wonderful was the most beautiful gift given to us by Kate and Rob, a very special red bauble with Ruby's name on it. It now sits, pride of place in the middle of tree and sparkles and shines in memory of our wonderful little girl.

That evening after a very warming fish pie we sat and watched our honeymoon video where we spent a month in Australia. Amazingly though, at least two thirds of the video consists of footage of the whole day and night spent on a fabulous campsite at Mooney beach with Kate and Rob. We managed to capture the long sequence of events that led to all of us being extremely drunken and disorderly by the end of the evening. What a great memory of 4 responsible adults having a reunion together and something to show our children in years to come....

The following day we took a long walk out along the beach having had a lovely slap up breakfast. It was not quite to the standards of the Australian beaches or weather but was wild and windy and very exhilerating none the less. It was great to get home and light the fire and sit around reminissing about the past and re-telling stories that we have all heard before but are always so hilarious. We rounded the day off with an early dinner out and back home to a roaring fire again and more reminissing. A perfect end to Kate and Robs stay with us.