Xmas Day 2013

 



Xmas Day was at Ruthy, Richo and Katies house in Edgewater, Maribyrnong. It was a full house with 13 of use present - Rich, Ruth, Katie of course, Mary (Richs mum), Margaret (Ruths mum) and John, Phil (Richs bro), Debbo, Jason, Frankie, Sonny and the two of us. Oh, and the two guinie pigs, Sophie and Rose, of course. Activities started around midday and rocked on until 9pm or so.

Cocktails - we started with alcoholic cocktails for the adults and fruity ones for the kids

Appetizer - our chemistry lecturer (aka Richo, who is getting into Heston Blumenthal and all his toys) prepared prawns on a bed of mango and cucumber salsa with garlic "foam", which was not as foamy as the chef would have liked but it tasted pretty awesome all the same.

We ate outside on the deck as it was a pleasant warm day, in the mid 20s.

Entrée - Richo again was the chef for Duck Three Ways. We had breast with port caviar (created with a pipette, as shown by the clown on the video), soufflé with truffle and Amiens pate. Yum indeed.

Exercise break - as most of the team left to walk around the lake, to make space for more food and sober up a little. We stayed in the house, had a clean up and prepped the main course...

Main course - BBQ butterflied legs of lamb with roasted veggies, by us! Not very traditional, but wonderful all the same.

Dessert - Ruthys lemon tart

Afters - mince pies, cranberry and chocolate cake or cheese.

Boxing Day Test 2013

Our first Boxing Day Test was in 1995 - the infamous test where Murali was no-balled for throwing. Stuey was so lagered up at the time he didn't even notice! We moved to Sydney to live before the test in 96 then returned to Melbourne in 99, where we went to every Boxing Day until left for the UK in mid 2010. We then missed 3 more until this year, so we have only missed 4 in 15 years, and unfortunately one of those was the last time England won the Ashes in Australia....

....which clearly didn't happen in 2013!! Awful, but that didn't detract from a wonderful day out with Debbo, Jason, Frankie, Sonny, Geoff, Abi and Olly. As the photo above shows, we were in the VERY top row of the Great Southern stand.

In the lunch break we walked around to the Members side of the ground and met up with Ruthy and Richo et al, who like us were still recovering from the feast on Xmas Day. We also met Steve, see below:-

And an amazing thing happened. We were all in the new England kits and a Graham from OPSM, one of the promo tents you can see behind us approach Stuey and asked if he would like to take part in a competition in the tea break. He didn't explain too much, except Stuey would be in the pitch watching some old Ashes appeals and he had to be the umpire and decide if they were out or not. The sponsor was OPSM, an optician.....eyesight....being the umpire....get it???

Anyway, Stuey expected to be on the pitch with a number of other contestants....not so, just Stuey!!

So to the decisions - the first was clearly not out, down the leg side. The second, as shown above was given out by umpire Stuey with the big glove. And the last decision was also given out, all correct which meant Stuey won a $50 voucher, a pair of Ray-Bans and a new iPad mini!! Woo Hoo!!

Vineys at Cape Paterson

The Viney clan descended on Sat 14th Dec and to help with jet lag we took the dudes down to Cape Paterson.


It turned into a bit of an Auzzie wildlife safari. First we wend to the mouth of the Powlet River to check out the roos, as shown on the video above. We then went onto Wilsons Prom and were treated to emus, wallabies, an echidna and lots of birds including a crimson rosella and black cockatoo.






On the way back from Wilsons Prom, Jason was keen to see a Koala. He spotted one in a tree as we drove past, which earned him the nickname Crocodile Viney, due to his bush skills.

We played beach cricket and did some boogie boarding in the sea.

 

 

 
 

 

Xmas letter 2013

Can’t believe but here we are again – another year and 2013 was a huge year of transition for us. We began in the UK but not for long as it was the start of our move back to Australia. It began “interestingly” when Nor (Stuey’s mum) broke her hip just after Xmas 2012. She had one dodgy hip before the accident, but Sods Law dictated that she broke the good one! So January involved a lot of miles seeing mum and helping her recover. Ah the UK motorway network in winter…..we wont miss it one bit!

 

Stuey fled the UK first in late Jan with Nicky following a few weeks later. She finished her work at Manchester Kids Hospital and since then has had a ‘portfolio career’ to coin the business school jargon. It’s the first time she has not had a sole significant job/title and she is adjusting well. She works two days a week in private paediatric practice in Melbourne City and Geelong, a regional centre about an hour away. After years of rejecting Stuey and the accountant’s suggestions to flee the public sector and go to the “dark side” of dentistry, she is really quite enjoying it. So are Stuey and the accountant! She does what she is best at – treating kids. Someone else looks after all the business “stuff”. Perfect! Another two days of her week have been in a research position at the MCRI, the research arm of the Royal Children’s Hospital. Towards the end of the year she landed the title Director of Cleft, so she has a posh title and all the associated hassle once more!

Stuey has had his busiest year ever as a muso. It all started with a three month contract with the Tasmanian Symphony, a big chunk of work with MSO (including playing to the film Lord of the Rings – The Twin Towers and the Orcs almost killed him) and lots of Orchestra Victoria work, including Prokofiev’s wonderfully quirky ballet Cinderella with the Australian Ballet and last but by no means least Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle. A little like Nicky’s writing style Wagner could be summed up with the phrase, “why use 10 words when 37 will do fine?!” It’s huge and challenging but wonderful.

 

 

Towards the end of the year our chamber group had a rebirth and a new name - http://www.kammermusik.com.au/. The concert almost killed us both as there were lots notes for Stuey and Nicky had to do “rhythm”!

Nicky reached her half century this year. Only 50 more years until her letter from the Queen or more likely from a King. We celebrated with around 50 friends in the Great Northern Hotel in Carlton North. It’s a bit of a regular for us on Tuesday as its steak nite – the place is packed with punters chomping down great steaks for $15.

Albury and Wodonga are now officially frequent flyers. They returned to Oz and had to suffer they ignominy of quarantine for a month. Stuey had to do the “parental visits” as Nicky couldn’t bear to see them locked up in a concrete cell….which was actually fine, but way below they lifestyle they have become accustomed to ie the run of a massive Georgian terrace in Clifton. They now have passports and three microchips each – just don’t ask how much, it brings Stuey and the accountant close to tears.

The UK housing market was as flat as a tack when we left so we have not sold our wonderful house in Clifton. We have been lucky to have great tenants; first Scot and Lisa from Seattle and now Nicola and Michael. Our good friend Michelle has been in our ‘basement’ for the past 2 years but has recently moved out to live with the new love of her life! So we are now getting to know, Jack.  We plan to popping the house back on the market in March 2014 as there are encouraging rumours of green shoots appearing in the UK economy. Glory Be! We became nomads this year - by early March 2013 we had spent the night in over a dozen places across the globe. We are currently renting a town house in O’Shanassy Street, North Melbourne, our 2^nd rental place in Melbourne this year! O’Shanassy St was going well until the entire ceiling fell onto the floor of the main bedroom in December. Luckily we were not in it at the time, but Nicky was confident she would have been OK, as it would have hit Stuart (and his belly) first!

Our beach house continues to be a mental health haven and even Albury and Wodonga have enjoyed a few weeks vacation down by the beach to help them in their transition. We have been engaged in some rennovations as the weather has seen the outside weatherboards deteriorate over the 10 years that we’ve own it. Nic has been busy pruning, mulching and planting in the garden – as always a great distraction to the business of life. We have also managed to take Kammermusik to Cape and relaunch Classical Cape, our regular chamber music concerts in the local village hall.

So now we send you all our love and good wishes for 2014 – we apologise if we have not been really good at staying in touch. People keep saying that they’ve not seen much of us recently – to which we respond ‘don’t worry we’ve not seem much of us either!’ We hope that 2014 will be alittle calmer and look forward to chatting and seeing as many of you as possible.

Wishing you a Merry Xmas and a safe, healthy and jolly 2014

Nicky and Stuey

Fitzgerald maintenance Sept 2013

Bob the builder continues his good work.

Timber houses need maintenance. Its been a really wet winter in 2013 and some of the woodwork has copped a beating. So its time to get up there, repaint what can be salvaged and remove/replace the rest. A spell of good weather lead to the following jobs:-

• prep, paint and pointing the roof gables over the kitchen and bunk room
• lots of prep and repainting
• sparkie in to change a transformer
• antennae man to extend and replace the TV aerial, to hopefully pick up a signal over the Empire State Building being built next door, which is right in line with the TV signal
• high pressure water jetted the outside of the house - it looks great, but there is more painting to be done!

Tad came to help on Saturday 7th Sept:-

The scaffold was up and down like a brides nightie. All in all it was a good weeks work, and a good workout for Stuey ahead of Cinderella then Wagners Ring!!

Nicky meets Elvis

 

Its true - Elvis is alive....and kicking!! While at supper with Adam and Gerry, Nic had a "moment" with Elvis, who is very cute.

Cats getting used to life back in Australia

After all the trauma of the move back to Oz, the cats are finally settling in. Woodie is very keen on his scratching post, as the photos clearly shows. He hated the one in Bristol, wouldn't touch it, but loves this one. That was until he had a little accident, fell off, got caught in the dangling catnip mouse and got into all sorts of strife. When Nicky went to help he bit her!! At the ripe old age of 50 she had to have her first antibiotics. Bloody mongrel!!

 

The newly reupholstered sofas are a big hit!

 

 

The most popular spot at Cape was the blanket on the pair of dining chairs. We never cease to be amazed at the places the cats chose to sleep.