Christmas Letter 2019

Introduction

Another busy year for us and our families, involving travel and some important milestone events in the lives of our grandchildren.

The Grandchildren

Joshua, our oldest grandkid, continues to work as a diesel mechanic, and to work on his great golf game – currently with a handicap of 4.

Cameron and his girlfriend, Kaitlyn, have bought a block of land at Kilmore and are building a house on it. They are travelling to the US for Christmas and plan to be in Time Square for the ball drop.

Joshua

Cameron and Kaitlyn

Hayley celebrated her 21st birthday, finished her degree, started a job and announced her engagement, to Richard, this year. Her wedding will be in November next year.

Troy continues on with his electrical apprenticeship. He works extra hours with his supervisor on private jobs.

Hayley and Richard

Troy

Jeremy, our English grandson, has been in Australia since July, staying with Michelle. He will avoid the English winter by returning to England in March.

Jonathan continues with his university work in Environmental Studies, where he met his girlfriend, Natalie. They have both been offered part-time work on the recommendation of their teachers.

Jeremy

Jonathan and Natalie

Amanda finished her secondary education and is planning to enter an Outdoor Leadership course at university. She has excelled with her training in circus activities. She won the Duke of Edinborough award at school.

Spencer has completed year 11 and continues with his passion for theatre appearing in multiple stage roles this year.

Amanda

Spencer

Travel

We travelled for 12 weeks this year - to Europe for 10 weeks and the pacific for 2 weeks.

Europe

The highlight of our longest trip was attending, our English granddaughter, Hayley’s, 21st birthday. On that ten-week trip we visited Hong Kong, Germany, England, Scotland, Spain, Greece, Montenegro, Sicily, Italy, and France.

For a full account of this trip follow this link.

There were many highlights of this trip, and four in particular: Scotland, Athens, Kotor and Amalfi

Scotland

On our Scotland tour, Margaret’s favourite place was the Queen Mother’s house in Mey, on the far north coast. Stephen’s favourite was Eilean Donan Castle.

Queen Mother's House	Eilean Donan Castle
On Loch Lomand	The road to Fort William

Athens

Stephen particularly loved Athens and wants to return there. It is quite difficult to take photographs in Athens and not have the Acropolis in the frame.





Kotor

We did not have any particular expectations of Kotor and so were pleasantly surprised and delighted at what we found there. It is an attractive location that we would like to return to some day.





Amalfi

The last time we were in Italy was in 2012. We were unable to get to the Amalfi coast because a landslide blocked the road. This time Stephen was determined to get to Amalfi. As usual the fares for trips off the ship were exorbitantly expensive, but we managed to travel to the gorgeous Amalfi by local ferry.



The Pacific

We cruised with our friends, Jenni and Les for two weeks starting in Melbourne and visiting Mare, Port Vila, Lautoka, Suva and Noumea.

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas,

and all the best for 2020,

from  Margaret and Stephen