Merry New Happy from Donnybrook

                                   

Alison, Henry, Claire & Paul, 2016

To

To the family and friends we consider you to be – a cohort of which comes without choice, take a moment to be deluded by a shamble of vernacular and judgements as we reflect on the year past, from a Delbridge’s of Donnybrook perspective.  Tis a time to wish you a jolly terror free Christmas, festooned with heavenly halal free foods and potent fumy grappa-vinums, and may your brightly coloured wrappy things under the front rooms pine sapling – not tick.  We shall celebrate the birth of baby Jesus in typical crusade style, draped in tinsel, wearing paper hats, exchanging gift cards of the same value and waiting for the Boxing Day Test cricket match to begin.  This year’s special gift to Kiddy 1 and 2 is too big for their Santa sacks -it goes Ping and Pong not Tick or Tock.  As per usual I will leave a pillow case on the end on my bed –only to once again find it flat as a pancake in the morning, I am trying so hard to still believe – maybe if I was at all ‘good’ things might change.  To be fair my friend Aldi has been very generous to me throughout the year.  Did I mention my love of the Left?  Sadly it’s like having a right lobe aneurism and the left is completely useless.  Fortunately the political landscape is on the turn, Trump and soon Hanson may provide that blanket of warm change from the Establishment regimes blinding us with propaganda.  Not least to assert to a ‘ShortOn’ brains nincompoop this side of the pacific that he is not in fact the Prime Minister.  Unfortunately Australia has got the cancer from poor policies of the past, wonder how Merkel is going washing the haemoglobin of her wretched paws.   Like Trump, Hanson may well build a wall of her own – a wall of reason! Time will tell.

Twas a stable year for us just stopping in; whereby no overseas trips, no fancy buys and no frills or spills supervened.  But we did kick off the year with an extended family holiday to Gold Coast for a Theme Park trilogy fest – 426 rides and 2 hotdogs.  Then it was back to school for Henry and Claire, year 9 and 8 respectively.  With two young teenagers of adult size, Henry over 6 foot from flipper to frons, we have certainly noticed food drain away from the pantry and fridge in apocalyptic amounts.

In October we gambled on some fine weather coming to Jurien Bay for a boating / fishing and biking holiday, it was a fantastic week shared with cousins and grandparents.  Such a beautiful place with a well laid out Marina.  We ate lots of yummy fresh fish, alas all of it from the Fish’n’ Chip shop.  I like local holidays, such serenity in an Aussie jaunt, away from airports, crowds and banks.

Henro Boy has had a good year in academia circles winning numerous awards including top of Science for year 9.  He likes to hit balls in both tennis and hockey; I shan’t advise which ones go into the net!!  Henry’s teeth are on the move, having been fitted with irons earlier this year making his lips all lumpy thus preventing a good seal on his trumpet.  Henry has swapped the horn for a hammer and slots into the school bands percussion section on the glockenspiel.  Fortunately he has kept up Piano and we are often serenaded with timeless Mozart and Beethoven classics.  Henry has secured an exchange student placement for next year, and in January we will receive Isaac for Windermere, North West of England for 6 weeks.  Henry will complete the prisoner exchange by venturing that way in September 2017.

Claire is doing really well at school; she has improved her grades dramatically through sheer hard work.  An ‘A’ this year in English was a really fine result.  We are pleased she is enjoying school so much.  Claire has a classy core group of friends with whom she networks tirelessly to arrange playdates and sleepovers, ensuring her Mom and Dad get plenty of Taxi work.  Claire’s purest talent identified thus far appears to be on the netball court.  Her shining abilities have been rewarded with not only the Most Valuable Player for her team but also runner-up MVP for her division within the Bunbury Netball Competition.  Claire has given up her long blowy whistle instrument aka Flute for the 6 string Guitar.  We don’t hear much of it around the house, but hopefully that will change as she grows in confidence plucking that cockamamie thing.

Alison celebrated a 10th year anniversary concert for her Dancing School this year in September.  It was showcasing the best of the best performances over the decade.  This year’s concert was stunning with polished performances throughout.  Alison received warm recognition for the dedicated work she puts into the development of young girls and boys of Donnybrook and beyond who benefit from the discipline, confidence, poise and skill being taught to them.

Alison loves her work as a Midwife and sometimes yanks a new baby into the world, though most often she visits Mums and Bubs in their own abodes of hugely varying suitability for human habitation.  As for me Paramedicine is a much loved calling, despite the region I cover being 200 kms away.  Hopefully in the very near future I will get a position close enough to home that I can sleep in my own bed after every shift.  What a treat that would be !

In April 2017 Ali-Cat and I will celebrate 20 years of matrimonial splendour; we shall mark the occasion re-enacting the epic proposal that took Alison on a small journey throughout the day culminating at a place in Kings Park where we planted a tree and buried a time capsule on our very first date.  We plan to share this day experience with Henry and Claire and then exhume the time capsule.  Beyond that - 30 more years are promised before I’m off to get a younger model.

May these very words written be our gift to you this Christmas, your choice to frame, print or delete.  At any rate, it goes without saying, one thing at a time, that only time will tell, with all due respect, it is what it is at this moment in time just saying… and to be honest, at the end of the day and even as we speak, when all is said and done, more is said than done.  Merry Christmas.