Wednesday, 15 December 1993

Dear S

Just a few lines in with your Xmas card.  So very pleased to get your letter but sorry to hear you have been sick and in hospital S and Jack with his leg in plaster, cripes both in the wars together.  Thank you for the lovely calendar you sent us, it is beautiful and we’ll hang it in the lounge but not till 1^st January, so thank you very much, it’s lovely to have something sent from so far away and by our grandchild, we do appreciate it and value it very much.

The family have been busy, Jean is doing ceramics and got a second prize at the Dandenong Show.  Kezza entered in the cooking competition and got a 1^st Prize for her chocolate cake, 2^nd for her banana cake and a high recommendation for her scones.

Your Mum was saying that you have a new job S, I hope you like it.  Do hope J enjoyed his 21^st, not surprised he didn’t want a party but do hope he has nice memories of it just the same.

Your mum sounds settled in her new home and I do hope that it will be a kind home to her.

Yesterday was so very hot we got 38 degrees, it was a terrible heat.  Xmas is so close and we bought the turkey already so it is in the deep freezer.  Are you going to have Xmas dinner with Jacks parents and is dinner like ours, turkey, Xmas pudding etc.  We were always bought up that what we had was the English dinner and of course every year we hear some say how silly it is we have a hot roast dinner when we should be having a cold salad dinner but Xmas is turkey and plum pudding and that’s that.

Do make sure you get plenty of Xmas decorations up S, it seems to make it warmer, that sounds silly I ‘spose but I ‘spose the word is more homely.  We just seem to have so much we want to do  before Xmas, and I have all the extra cooking etc.  We had our clean up round the house yesterday and took a trailer load to the tip – just all odds and ends and so now we have a bit of spare room about the place.  We cut some of the flowers back too, hopefully they will put new shoots out but some had gone scraggy and needed the cut back to keep things tidy.  We have a very small vegie garden this year and we will miss the peas but frozen peas are cheap to buy so we’ll manage on them.

We have very little fruit this year, the parrots just loved the blossoms and would just sit on the branches and eat at the blossoms so result is no fruit. Have some apples, pears and lemons but no apricots, very few peaches, nectarines and plums.  I just won’t have any to preserve or make jam with but as Pop says, it will cut down on the work and it will give us a chance to catch up on what I have sitting on the shelves in the pantry.   I had a visit from a fox, was at 8 o’clock in the morning, we are lucking I went outside when he was in the pen with the chooks.  Pop got the gun but he got away but I’ve still got my 6 chooks left.

Well I must close and I’ll catch the postie.

We’ll miss you at Xmas but we send our love and are thinking of you.  We just give thanks for all the years that we were together at Xmas.

x Love from Nana and Pop x