ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

A very un-snowy Christmas!

Hello again everyone, and a very merry Christmas to you all!

Wow, it sounds like everyone has been having a very eventful Christmas – I do have to admit, though, I’m quite jealous of those of you who’ve been lucky enough to have some snow! My dad emailed some photos from the river near our home in Doncaster (if you’ve never heard of it, which wouldn’t be surprising, it’s a town in South Yorkshire, about 2½ hours north of London) for Owen, who immediately demanded that Grandad should organise snow for us when we visit him next Christmas! You might be fed up with snow pictures, but I’m not, so I’ve included one for you at the end of this post, along with some from our trip to Queensland.

We had a lovely Christmas, starting on Christmas Eve when we were invited to a friend’s place for a barbecue, which is a very Aussie thing to do at Christmas. The street they live on has a special tradition, which is that the residents decorate their houses and gardens with lights, and on Christmas Eve they get permission to close the road for a few hours in the evening so they can sing carols on the street and walk up and down looking at all the different lights. We really enjoyed it – the decorations ranged from the religious (with Nativity scenes) to the ridiculous (with the entire house covered in flashing lights, Santas, reindeer and all sorts of other things). Owen loved the carols and the lights, but hid from Santa (of course Santa made an appearance!) and Daniel was very funny – he just ran up and down the road talking to all the dogs (there were a LOT of dogs out with their owners). He’d chase after a dog, saying “woof woof”, the dog (and owner) would turn round to say hello, and then he’d get all scared and run away, leaving me to apologise to the owner!

We had a fairly quiet Christmas – Chris’ mum came to us this year, as it’s our last year in Hurlstone Park. I cooked up a storm, she did dessert, and we’ve been eating the leftovers ever since! Despite having friends over both yesterday and today, the fridge doesn’t look any emptier than it did three days ago! The boys enjoyed themselves immensely, and so did Chris (especially when he found the chocolates hidden at the back of the fridge!).

We’re looking forward to a relaxing week next week; we’ve both got some time off work, so the plan is to catch up with friends and maybe one day take the boys to the zoo (if it stops raining ...). One of the TV channels is showing lots of one-hit wonders videos tonight, so I’m planning to watch that and see how many songs I recognise!

Anyway, without further ado, here are some photos for you as promised.

Rachel H



Flame trees: these were in bloom all over the areas we visited, and were absolutely stunning



View of the hills near Chris' dad's house



More views ...



View from the garden - if you look into the distance, you can just see the Glasshouse Mountains



Birds on the (very frozen) River Don (thanks Dad!)



House decorations on Christmas Eve - you can't see on the photo, but the wheels on Santa's bike move round and the bells flash.



Our Christmas cake - made and decorated by the boys (with a bit of help!) (and what fun they had!)


And a bit of vocab ...

eventful (adj) – full of interesting or important events

to be fed up with (phr. vb) – to be bored or annoyed with something/someone

to cook up a storm (expr) – to cook with a lot of energy

leftovers (n. pl) – food remaining after a meal is finished

to have friends/people over (phr. vb) – to invite people to your house

to get/take time off work – to have a holiday from work

without further ado – without wasting more time

Thanks for all your contributions. This blog has now closed and can no longer accept new comments.