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.

Hogmanay 2007

Hogmanay was at our place this year. Karen, Dan and Ben came, as well as the usual suspects, our other family: Sharon and Holly and Janet, Steven and Georgia Addison. Kate was at a party at a friend's house. We were also joined by a mate of Jamie and Robbie's, Nick.
Robbie had wanted to spend Hogmanay at his friend, Lee's house. He had been invited to also stay the night before but when I dropped Rob off and spoke to Marie, Lee's mum, to ensure she did want him for two nights, Marie asked was I aware that she wasn't going to be home on Hogmanay. Rob had failed to bring that to my attention so later, after talking it over with Ian, we decided not to let him stay over on Hogmanay; we would pick him up at 9pm.
At 6:10pm the phone went and someone was asking for Robbie. I told them he was at a friend's place until later, could I get him to ring back then? It was someone from Eagle Boys where Robbie works - he was supposed to have started work at 6pm!!! I rang Robbie and quickly grabbed his uniform. Ian arrived home from an errand just as I got to the driveway so I sent him to get Rob from Lee's and take him to work. We'd been nagging him to check his roster - he'd been getting two or so shifts a week before school broke up but suddenly appeared to have a few weeks with no work which seemed strange. (Funny thing was that on New Year's morning Sharon answered the phone and had an almost identical phone call from McDonalds. Holly was supposed to be working that morning and hadn't turned up. Quick fly down to Blaxland for them!)
During the day Ishbel and I went to see the film Enchanted. It's about a cartoon character who gets sent to real life by a wicked stepmother and the adventures she and her prince charming have in New York and the power of true love. We absolutely loved it; laughed ourselves silly. Can't wait to get it on DVD.
Our evening with our family and friends was very pleasant. As is traditional at these events we all brought enough to feed the forty thousand and there was WAY too much to eat. We played games, saw in the New Year, watched the Sydney fireworks on TV, saw the visitors off the premises and went to bed.