Not a great beginning for me on the 24th — as I was in bed with a migraine up until Aldies arrived at 5PM.  And it was raining, so we were shunted upstairs for coffee, a meal and gift exchanging with Nao included.  Trish gave me this rat in a trap which is sound activated into a frenzied attempt to escape…

    Christmas Day found the de Villiers and Needham’s over for a barbeque.  I played cricket and had a session in the pool with the boys.

    Highlight was Boxing Day.   Whites came over en masse, as is the tradition, and they were joined by the Brundells (for the very first time).  Loads of fun.  We had Edna do the official opening of “Brundell Bush” (see below).   Another barbeque followed by games and gifts. I gave Matthew a book “Beginner’s Guide to Collecting Socks” (see below).

    On the 27th Stephanie stopped in with Walter. We then had the ten-pin rematch and I beat Nao by getting two strikes in the 10th of the second game.  And I did it with a bum knee. I had torn a ligament in my right knee a couple weeks earlier and had been limping around.  Just my luck as it cut down on my surfing for the summer, too.   Up to Needham’s on the 28th for a few hours on the computer followed by a soak in their hot tub.  Home for an evening of Rock n Roll Scattergories with Doug.  Ne and Nao went camping on the 29th while we hosted our Trivial Pursuit group.   After a normal game we played the After-Dinner Mint version.

 December 30th my computer crashed and I lost all my programs and so I spent the next two days rebuilding it.  Ne and Nao came back on 31st, and Nao went to Auckland leaving Ne high and dry forever.  Brundell came over for a meal and when he left at 7PM I went to bed and didn’t get up until 11AM the following year.  So you could say that New Year’s Eve was a bit of a fizzler.