2004 - The Year That December Ate

So I am sure many of you are wondering what happened to 2004's Christmas Rave? OK well perhaps one of you is. Hmm, not a single query? But you know me - when has that ever stopped me? It succumbed mostly to me starting to date someone at the start of December, and with that tanking in late January, the less said about it, the better, in a very intense way which mneat lots of time being romantic, not so much time publishing a newsletter, putting up the Christmas tree (Yes! No tree! Can you imagine?!) and doing all the things a Christmas junkie normally does, with the exception of shopping, which is never missed!

So here is a summary of 2004, such as it was, in as condensed a form as I can manage...

LOTS OF TRIPS. To Manila in January. To Kuala Lumpur in March/April and June for 8 weeks. Much food, and shopping. Read 'The Da Vinci Code' (I couldn't be the only person who didn't! I just couldn't!). Many airport security checks including 2 in Manila 50 m apart (and no I did not pass any bomb or knife stands in that short length of corridor). Saw a shop in KL called 'Denise the Wine Shop'. Ate much Indian food, with a good friend from the off shore call centre, Sue, and her husband, Bobby. Saw "Saturday Night Fever" the musical. Went up KL Tower and the Petronas Towers. Read "Pandora's Star", a 900 page novel one weekend in an air conditioned hotel room, while ordering in room service - bliss. Also to Canada in November and a visit to Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island - stayed at Chesterman Beach in a gorgeous B & B over looking a driftwood covered grey sandy beach (picture on left above is me on the aptly named Long Beach, near Chesterman Beach).

PACKING UP

Apart from moving myself yet again in June, this time without long time housemate Andrew who moved home, I also packed up and moved my great aunt Liz from her home in Darling Point of 30 + years in February-May, which was sad for her, and us, on some levels since we all had so many memories of her in that unit, but also a wonderful chance to spend time with my Mum, Aunt Helen & Uncle Gary, cousns Ruth (and her husband Roger) and Lois (and her husband Martin). (See photo above of me, Auntie Liz, Aunt Helen & Mum at Doyle's Watson's Bay) But also happy since she would be in a very caring nursing home in Alstonville, in good hands, and with the company she craved. I am minding her exquisite cane furniture which is now my lounge suite so I feel like I have her with me in Sydney still.

>>> see now that wasn't so bad was it?! I am sure lots more happened but I didn't journal it so it is now lost to the sands of time, much like Australian democracy of late....