Early Christmas in Oz

Since we won't be here for Christmas this year we had our family Christmas Day on Saturday. It was a hot sunny day - for a change - and we all headed to the small Castle Rock beach on the inner harbour in the morning. There were few people around to begin with so we had the beach and water to ourselves for a while and then headed home for lunch after several hours.

Laura was working at the newsagents in the afternoon but when she came home we 'threw' some snags and prawns on the barbie and ate on the veranda. We also exchanged our 'secret Santa' presents and then the girls opened some additional presents early that we're not going to ship to the UK and back!

We've also had another social weekend, with Sue and I meeting 2 other couples for a meal in Mona Vale on Friday night and then going with Rebecca for a meal with some other friends yesterday lunchtime. We also had a disrupted night on Saturday with numerous fire engines and police cars converging on an industrial unit 2 blocks away from us at 2.30am - we could see the red sky and hear the fire from the house and there was still plenty of activity at the site the next morning, including a forensics team as it was apparently a suspected arson attack.

So this week is now one of winding down for the girls at school, and for the business, prior to the Christmas holiday.