Happy New Year

Ian and I had a quiet Hogmanay. All three kids were out for the evening. Jamie went into the City with some of his friends, Rob was at a Scout friend's house and Ishbel was at a sleepover birthday party. Both Ishbel and Rob had not been well, Ishy with a cold and Rob with a stomach upset so we weren't surprised when we got a call sometime after 11pm to come and collect Ishbel. Up until then Ian and I were at home with Sharon and Holly. Holly had been planning to be in the City with Jamie and his pals but she and Sharon had had the same stomach upset as Rob and were feeling a bit weak and watery so they came round to our house and we played board games.

I have been sitting up in Ishbel's room most of today, listening to a book on tape (hers is the only stereo with a cassette player). I have book group on Sunday. Usually we have a late Christmas lunch early in January where we organise what books we are going to read in the coming year, but don't discuss a book and have our discussion meeting on the third Sunday as usual. This year, however, there has been a change of plan which passed me by and we're having the discussion this Sunday and the lunch on the 17th! The book shops are closed and all the library had was the talking book. It's been a nice relaxing day, I did some cross stitch too - a Peter Rabbit alphabet I bought when Ishbel was an infant!!!!!

On Wednesday I was in town with some girlfriends. I won two tickets to a play, The Book of Everything, at the Belvoir Theatre in the City. I'd invited my friend Heather to come too. I'd initially rung Sharon to ask her to come with me, she'd recently taken me to something at the same theatre, but she and Holly already had tickets so I invited Heather instead and we arranged to go to the same performance and arranged to go all together and to have dinner in town afterwards. Unfortunately, as mentioned already, Sharon and Holly were unwell and couldn't go so she gave up her tickets and I asked Catherine along and Heather's mother (who is over from Canada) was able to take advantage of Holly's concession ticket.

The Book of Everything is a book we read together for book group in early 2008 so we were pleased to be able to go. And it was really, really, really good. We were a bit concerned to see lots of children in the foyer - the book, while ultimately about optimism, features domestic violence and we wondered how the children would deal with it but the production was a very humorous one and I'd really love to take Ishbel, if not the other two.

As planned, we went in search of dinner after the play, the lady sitting next to Catherine suggested we go to Crown street where we would find lots of restaurants. Fortunately Catherine had brought Ken - her TomTom navigation thingy - because we hadn't a clue where we were going. We thought a Wednesday night would be quiet - we were sooooooo wrong and ended up waiting 20+ minutes to get a table at a Thai restaurant. Luckily it was a good meal and worth the wait in the end. It was after midnight before we got back to Springwood.

Boys at Christmas

Christmas again and again and again

We've been 'doing' Christmas for ages now it seems.

The kids have been on holiday since last Wednesday, the teachers having two extra pupil free days at the end of the year - that took me by surprise. Ishbel had to spend a couple of days at Tanderra while Ian and I finished off the working year. Ian is now on holiday until 11th Jan while I will be back at work between Christmas and the New Year and in January until 11th Jan when I'll have a couple of weeks to get the kids through the long holidays - they go back to school at the end of Jan.

Our round of Christmas parties started with a BBQ at Bec and Steve's last Saturday before they piled kids and new pup into the car for Christmas on the north coast. Ishbel also had a party on Sunday at the pool but the rest of us had some respite until Wednesday (23rd) when we went to Janet and Steven's for a BBQ. Steven has been building new decking out the back so we went to admire it. And eat ourselves to a standstill! The next evening we were at Sharon's for dinner. And ate ourselves to a standstill!

It was a relaxed start to Christmas Day with the kids having quite long sleeps until the last one, Rob, got up about 9:30am. Karen, Dan and Xavier came over for lunch and stayed until about 6:30pm. We then had a quiet hour or so before Janet, Steven and their girls came over. That got rid of the Crhistmas pudding and Christmas cake (like we needed to eat anything else) which we worked off with a loud, tuneless, SingStar competition. The Colquhouns did not win!

Yesterday we headed down to Roey and Pete's for lunch with them and Pete's Mum, Pat. Roey and Pete have had renovations done and have opened up the back of the house with a new kitchen/family room with large french doors onto the garden. Looks good.

Tonight we are going out to a local Thai restaurant with Janet, Steven, Sharon and the girls. We started last year going out together on Christmas Eve rather than buy presents for the other families but coudn't arrange a night altogether before Christmas - on the night we were at Janet and Steven's Sharon couldn't come and on Christmas Eve when we went to Sharon's Janet was working so tonight is our Christmas dinner out - a bit of overkill at this stage but we're going through with it anyway.

Can't wait for a night in.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

And here's some Christmas 'singing' for you - the type us Colquhouns should undertake :

A reflection on Christmas and cuisine

Early Christmases in Sydney were a melancholy time for the first few years. The early rulers were Protestants, who encouraged sobriety and believed that too much celebration was a popish thing. Some of the most puritan did not even mark it as a day for attending church, as this was regarded as a practice that belonged exclusively to Sundays. This Puritan legacy helped to keep Christmas a family day - again a cause of sorrow for those who were separated from family.

One element of the traditional Christmas and its pagan antecedents was a focus on food. The scarcity of food supplies in the early years of Sydney's settlement mirrored the general scarcity in the 'old country' winter, but while the northern household might store up preserved fruits and fatten up precious poultry for the special event, there was little opportunity to plan ahead in Sydney.

In 1788, the record tells us that the governor and the officers dined heartily. The following year, with colonial stocks very low, the governor ate turtle, especially bought in for him from Lord Howe Island. As to the rest of the settlement, little is known, though there are rumours of precious flour rations being deflected from use in making common damper to innovative creations such as parrot pie.

1803 is the first year that the public record specified how the whole establishment ate. The Sydney Gazette records that extra rations of fresh beef, suet and raisins were provided for the military and civil establishment while the convicts were given extra rations of salt pork and flour.

This apparently was not considered good enough; the Gazette also recorded that some pigs went missing, and one convict who stole a pound of flour from a private house got 200 lashes on Boxing Day.

From those early days of salt pork and scarcity, by the mid century the food situation had certainly improved. Richard Peck, importer of 452 George Street advertised in 1848 that he could sell you a range of teas - black, flowery Peko, Souchong, green, gunpowder, or Hyson etc. His coffees were roasted daily - java, manila, mocha etc. He stocked muscatels, prunes, candied orange peel, a variety of almonds, brandied fruits, pickles and chutneys, including mango. He had walnuts, pickled onions, French capers, sauces, oils and eight kinds of vinegar - Richard Peck, the Simon Johnson of his day. All this might be washed down with some of his range of wines - champagne, hock, claret, Madeira, port and sherry.

In contrast, the Colonial Wine Depot at the Bulls Head further along George Street had in for the Christmas rush many varieties of spirits, as well as Guinness stout, Barcley's stout and 'every article in the trade at low prices', while 'for the working classes' he had ordered in 500 cases of Byass's Ale at 6d a bottle or 4 dozen for 20/-.

From Shirley Fitzgerald at The Dictionary of Sydney

For the kids

We have been using the NORAD Santa Tracker for a few years now.

NORAD is the bi-national U.S.-Canadian military organization responsible for the aerospace and maritime defense of the United States and Canada. NORAD, created by a 1958 agreement between Canada and the United States, provides advanced warning of impending missile and air attacks against its member nations, safeguards the air sovereignty of North America, and maintains airborne forces for defense against attack.

NORAD began tracking Santa in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief's operations hotline. The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

Since that time, NORAD men, women, family and friends have selflessly volunteered their time to personally respond to Christmas Eve phone calls and emails from children. In addition, we now track Santa using the internet. Last year, millions of people who wanted to know Santa's whereabouts visited the NORAD Tracks Santa website.

The NORAD Tracks Santa website helps you count down to Christmas. In addition there is a Kids Countdown Page with lots of fun games and activities and you can follow Santa on Google Earth.

OMG, what have we done?

The boys got an IOU for a "real" dog for Christmas and today we took them up to the council pound at Katoomba to redeem it.
40 minutes later we walked out with Josie.

Josie is 10 weeks old (born 21st October) one of a litter of 19 (!! yes, 19, that is not a typo). The people were able to find homes for all but 5 puppies which ended up at the BMCC pound.

Josie is a Bull Mastiff x Irish Wolfhound. Eeeek! She was the smallest of the 4 pups of the litter left. Her brother was twice her size.


Ishbel says : Josie is ADORABLE !!!!! At the pound we were getting Bella and Josie to get to now each other. One of the vet went past and she was OFF ! after the vet Robbie went after her and steped on her lead to stop her. She is Sooooooo energetic. She looks like a Tiger.

Channel 6 TV News Story

Wanted to preserve this. Well done to GD and Shirley for finding it and passing it on. It was a hoot. Ishbel loved it and so did my colleagues - as Gillian said today we're (that means you Mum and Shirley!!!) going to have to work hard to top that next year.

Search on for Ishbel Colquhoun: Naughtiest Person in the World

Christmas 2008

We were out on Christmas Eve with Janet, Steven, Georgia and Kate and Sharon and Holly. We decided that, instead of gift buying, we would have dinner out and rolled up to the Chinese restaurant at Faulconbridge at 6:30pm for a slap-up meal. It was chaos as we all ordered over each other, changed our minds and (Holly) spilt red wine all over the table! Since we were in a Chinese restaurant we played Chinese whispers - what a hoot. Instead of dessert at the restaurant we went back to Janet and Steven's for pavlova which no one ate a lot of in the end.

As you might expect, Ishbel was first up on Christmas Day. We made her wait until after 8am before going to wake up the boys - quietly, gently we said. She wasn't.

After presents opening - XBox for the children (all the Cowan grandchildren got one it seems), IOU for a "real" dog for the boys, trampoline for Ishbel, hammock for Ian, jewellry for Heidi, it was down to work for Ian and I.

I set to making lunch while Ian put the trampoline together. He did ok until trying to get the bouncy canvas bit in place. We ended up dragging the boys away from their XBox to tug and pull at the canvas while I tried to hook it to the springs. We tugged and pulled and tugged and pulled and were pulling our hair out as to how ANYONE managed to put one on when Ishbel gave us the benefit of her reading the instructions and informed us there was a special spring tool to help us get the springs in place! It was easy after that and Ishbel had her trampoline.

About midday I finally had lunch ready to start cooking and just as the chicken was going in the oven Karen, Dan and the boys arrived. We had a lovely lunch of chicken, ham, roast veg and salads and fruit mince pies with cream and little meringue nests with cream and fruit. Xavier was very obliging and slept through lunch and came awake to play afterwards.

At one point Xavier was looking over Karen's shoulder at the boys playing on the computer. He was watching them really intently and got quite aninmated. He looked like he'd like to join them.

Today, Boxing Day, has been quiet and relaxed. Ian, Ishbel and I took a quick trip down to Springwood Library to empty the After Hours Return bin before a trip to the hardware shop to get hooks to hang Ian's hammock on. After much debate about where the hooks should go, he got it installed nicely and was soon relaxing with a Lee Childs book. And there he stayed all afternoon.

Flickr slideshow of Christmas will be posted in the right hand side for a while.

There is still time to make this for Christmas!

Christmas Cake Ingredients:

* 2 cups flour

* 1 stick butter

* 1 cup of water

* 1 tsp baking soda

* 1 cup of sugar

* 1 tsp salt

* 1 cup of brown sugar

* Lemon juice

* 4 large eggs

* Nuts

* 1 bottle Brandy

* 2 cups of dried fruit

1. Sample the brandy to check quality.
   
2. Take a large bowl, check the brandy again. To be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.


3. Repeat.
   
4. Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.
   
5. Add one teaspoon of sugar.
   
6. Beat again. At this point it's best to make sure the brandy is still OK. Try another cup . . . just in case.
   
7. Turn off the mixerer thingy.
   
8. Break 2 eggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.
   
9. Pick the frigging fruit up off floor.
   
10. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver.
    
11. Sample the brandy to check for tonsisticity.
    
12. Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something.


13. Check the brandy.
    
14. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.
    
15. Add one table.


16. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.
    
17. Greash the oven.
    
18. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.
    
19. Don't forget to beat off the turner.
    
20. Finally, throw the bowl through the window.
    
21. Finish the brandy and wipe counter with the cat.
    

Bingle Jells!

Ian's Christmas 2007

Ian got some books from Santa, Tools of War: the weapons that changed the world by Jeremy Black and Richard Hammond's Car Confidential.
He also wants to do a motorbike cornering course (??) so is investigating that.

Oh yes, but we can't show it because there might be children watching, he also got a banana guard!!!

Heidi's Christmas 2007

I put in my order for a Bushranger Firefighter helmet. Although we get issued with a free helmet, I wanted this one because it has a pull down visor which means I might not need to wear goggles with it - I can't get the regulation goggles to stay on my face no matter how tight I pull them. I think I might have to do my firefighting in swimming goggles otherwise!

Ian also managed to get a sticker with my name to go on the back. I just have to make sure I put it on straight now.

I also bought for myself a copy of a new picture book, Puff the Magic Dragon. It's a beautifully illustrated picutre book and comes with a CD of the song and a few others by Peter Yarrow.

I remember fairly well having Puff played on BFBS radio for my 5th birthday so it's very special to me.

Jamie's Christmas 2007

Jamie also got the same backpack and will get Japanese Yen for his trip to Japan on 8th January. He also got a copy of Matthew Reilly's latest novel - signed by the author. Jamie has been on the library reserve list for this title for ages so I thought I'd get it for him for Christmas. When I went to the bookshop in Penrith last Thursday there was a huge queue wending its way through the shop. Turned out Matthew Reilly was coming to do a book signing. I stood in line for about 3/4 hr and got it signed. Jamie was rapt.

Rob's Christmas 2007

Robbie requested and got a new backpack and a tent. The tent is a one man one, only about 50cm tall at its highest point, 2m or so long and very claustrophobic looking. He put it up in the living room - the cat thought it was marvellous.

Ishbel's Christmas 2007

Ishbel got books (cute Jack Russell Dog Detective - we also have a few on talking book in the library so I'll get her some of those too) and a pink unicorn (from the social club at Council). Named Sparkle, the unicorn is her favourite toy of the moment.

Christmas Day 2007

We had a really nice Christmas day yesterday.

Had a chat on Christmas Eve with Mum and Dad and Fiona via Skype. Spent a lot of the time we were online trying to fiddle with getting the webcam to work (without success) and then with the NORAD Santa tracker on Google Earth. Sorry I wasn't very chatty. It's not easy skyping when the kids are trying to watch something on TV as they were at the time.

I had been worried we hadn't very much for the children. I had been unable to bring myself to buy anything for Ishbel when out shopping the other night; she has so much junk in her bedroom, none of which gets kept tidily and I couldn't bring myself to add to that junk. As always, however, as I wrapped up the bits and pieces I realized we had plenty.
Christmas morning came (not too early thank goodness) and everyone happy with their presents.

I will do posts for each of the family with their favourite Christmas thing separately, youngest to oldest.

We headed down towards Roey and Pete's place just after 11am. There we had the full traditional Christmas dinner, not usually bearable in December but this year the weather was cool and we were in jumpers most of the day. There were oysters, prawns and various dips and cheeses to start followed by roast turkey, ham, tatties, salad etc. and later, quite a while later an icecream Christmas pudding and a 'normal' Christmas pudding. We tried hard to get the brandy to flame but just succeeded in blackening the spoon and wasting lots of matches and gave up in disgust.

During the late afternoon we went for a walk round the bay. Pete's mum Pat was with us. She's in her 80s and not used to walking much because its not flat round where she lives, but she managed the walk really well. We walked round to some rock carvings done by some of the early white sailors to Sydney - the ships would be dragged up in one of the bays near where Roey and Pete live to be shaved of barnacles etc and while there the sailors carved messages on the rocks.

We discovered it was almost 8pm by the time we got back to the house! Had no idea it was that late, the day passed very quickly. A last beer for Ian and we were on the road home by 8:30 and home by 9:30pm.