Pre-Christmas, Christmas and New Year

Just before Christmas Tom and Jules took the Emmett-Bennetts up to the farm for a couple of days. Nick brought his own very smart trail bike and Tia, India and Tom took to the bikes like ducks to water. They also spent a happy couple of hours at Dunns Swamp swimming and jumping off rocks. 

We spent Christmas Eve decorating a gingerbread house which sadly collapsed very quickly!

Christmas Day morning started with our obligatory swim and then Tom kept everyone on the beach entertained as "Surfing Santa". 

We had a great afternoon opening presents and drinking champagne whilst playing games. I found an Escape Room game which we all really enjoyed. The Wakes-Millers came round for Christmas dinner and we started the evening off with Christmas Cosmopolitans. 

On Boxing Day we went on a catamaran to watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart. It was such a wonderful experience particularly watching the Maxis race past us - it's incredible how fast they go. 

For the period between Christmas Day and the start of January we dodged Covid (the Omicron variant is spreading like wildfire over here) and pretended that we were on holiday. We booked restaurants which got cancelled due to covid so booked other ones instead. The weather was beautiful and warm for about 5 days so we spent lots of time at the beach and hanging out on Kia Kaha. We spent NYE on Kia Kaha with the Watts and watched the 9pm fireworks. 

Tess worked at Jellyfish when it wasn't closed due to Covid whilst Tom juggled jobs at Ben & Jerry's, the local butcher, Manly Surf Club Shop and his favourite one (and now the main one) which is working as a Surf Instructor for Manly Surf School. It's quite nice how it's all come full circle - Tom grew up doing lessons at Manly Surf School and Nick, the manager, who has known him since he was a grom, has been so impressed with how good he is as an instructor - totally focussed on the experience for whoever he is teaching and ensuring that they have a brilliant time regardless of the surf and weather conditions. 

We measured Tom and Jules a couple of days ago and Tom has finally overtaken Jules in height (Tom's the one without the grey hair!). 

I can't say I'm sorry to see the back of 2021- it's been a really challenging year - but I'm not sure that 2022 is shaping up to be much better. I can't believe we are starting another year with the only topic of conversation being Covid. At least the focus has changed slightly with the big question now being whether you've had it yet or not. We know more and more people, including whole families, who have had to isolate over the Christmas/New Year period because they've been infected. Luckily, due to the very high vaccination rates (over 95% in NSW), we're not experiencing many deaths or serious illness but due to it's prevalence we are going to have overcrowded hospitals quite soon and we may have to start thinking about more restrictions to help manage that. We have our flights booked for the UK in Easter and we're keeping everything crossed that we'll make it...