Here we are again, late as usual with our Christmas letter. This year we have all been up to our usual activities. For the first 6 weeks of 1993, we travelled extensively throughout NSW and Victoria, seeing friends and relatives. In all we covered about 7000 km, with only one puncture.

David's highlight was going to Bendemeer tracing his family tree, and discovering Elbra's Gully while walking down the main street. William Elbra was the blacksmith in Bendemeer, and he lived adjacent to the gully. Charles Edwards, the town bootmaker, lived on the other side of the gully. Charles' son Charles married William's daughter Sara. Their son Russell Edwards married Elsie Sanderson, whose son Keith was Christopher Charles Edwards' grandfather (hence the middle name!). After a long meal in the pub at Bendemeer, Stuart Easterman, the local historian, was persuaded to part with a copy of his book "History of Bendemeer", which includes a picture of  William Elbra.

Kerry's highlight was going to Cassilis and Merriwa, and meeting Billy Bowman, who remembered Kerry's great grandfather Patrick Ford when he managed her father's property. After Kerry explained who she was, Billy said she even looked like a Ford! We also visited Kerry's great aunts Ruby and Dulcie.  A 20th Anniversary Reunion was held in Sydney for the 1972 HSC class at St George Girls High School.  49 old girls turned up to have a wonderful afternoon.  We had collectively about 75 husbands and 125 children and lots of great memories. An enduring memory of the trip remains the night we camped at the Goulburn River.

The kids had many highlights. They remember water ski-ing at Mildura, water slides at Ballarat and Barham, swimming in the river at Bendemeer, Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo, the "warm" sea all along the east coast, long hours in the van, and lots of mangoes and watermelons.

David went to sea in June to the Bismarck Sea, helping geologists dredge up rocks from 2000 metres.  The second trip in December was exciting and started high and dry in the Garden Island Dockyard in Sydney, progressed to inspecting all the Sydney beaches at close range (from the sea, in 20 metres of water!), and returned to Sydney with samples from the new ocean sewerage outfalls!

David is still involved with the Hobart Division of the IREE, and was elected to the IREE Council, and also to the IREE Society Council, which are national engineering professional bodies. He is still involved with the Battery Point Neighbourhood Watch, the Marieville Residents Association and the Battery Point Progress Association.

David's union activities assumed a higher profile this year. Finally, the Duty at Sea case was completed and ratified by the IRC, although there are still a few implementation problems. Senator Schacht's plans for CSIRO were vigorously opposed by all of CSIRO and the union, with David organising a "burial at sea", a "24 hour work in"  and a street march, which he actually led, complete with megaphone and national TV coverage! The net result of all this was a deferral while a review of Marine Science was undertaken. Guess who had a large part in the ACTU submission! There has been no firm outcome at this stage, but we are quietly confident.

This year our annual camping trip was to Fawlty Towers again. We took 8 bikes on the trailer, and we all rode (including Victoria!) 30 km to Fingal and back. David has a new mountain bike (with front suspension), and Kerry is becoming quite keen as well.

Kerry has had an exciting year as usual.  Back to work in February for a brief extension of the term with International Education, before moving back to the Technical College for a lighter load of teaching and program evaluation work.  In July she took a position with the Department of Foreign Affairs as the project officer for the Antarctic Foundation, writing, editing and doing evaluation and assessment work.  The change of pace was very welcome this year, allowing time to catch up with other important parts of life, like sleeping (not on an aeroplane!) reading all of Patrick White's and Ruth Park's novels, actually going to the movies during the day and taking off all the weight that last year's indulgences had put on.  She collected the Diploma of Social Science for work done in 91-2, but decided against pursuing a Masters in that area.

Other activities include preparing a paper for the Professional Historian's Association conference, joining the Tasmanian branch of the Sydney University Alumni Association, the Friends of Anglesea Barracks Museum and helping start the Sandy Bay Historical Society. Kerry is still involved with EF foreign students. In 1994 we are going to host a student from Canada. Donna will arrive in late January, and we are all looking forward to meeting her. She has experience in coaching junior soccer, and wants to keep this up. David has great plans for Donna, as he will be coaching Victoria in the U8 team in 1994, and needs an U7 coach!

Winter this year involved a lot of soccer, with Alex in the U13 team at Taroona; Chris in the U11, Phillipa in the U9 and Victoria in the U7 teams at Albuera Street Primary, and Chris and Phillipa in the Central Region Representative teams.  Phillipa attended a tennis camp and came away with a Most Improved prize.

Chris is looking forward to joining Alex at Taroona High next year, so we will have two children at Albuera Street and two at Taroona High. All the children did very well at school this year. Alexander went to Canberra with his school this year, Phillipa went to Hagley Farm School, and Christopher went to camp at Esperance. Christopher now has great phone card collection, which means we have to stop and check every phone box we see. He would appreciate receiving any of your old cards! Phillipa continued with the violin at school this year, and Kerry got interested as well, so she bought a violin and has become quite skilled. Alexander is learning saxaphone and rock & roll piano. He has taken to listening to all David's Rolling Stone records. A blow this year was the loss of Edwina, who has taught all the children piano for the past 2 years.  Edwina has moved back to Sydney and we are looking for a new teacher.

Yvette Belbin returned this year to babysit the children after school. We still keep in touch with her mother Gerry, and follow all the Belbin news.

Victoria had a nasty accident on her bike at the shack, attempting to keep up with Christopher who was speeding down a hill on Phillipa's billy-cart. Dad was watching and nearly had a heart attack. Victoria emerged with many scrapes and bruises, no serious injuries, and a firm belief in the value of bike helmets!

We have put a fair bit of effort into the garden, and all the roses etc are now looking really great. We have started eating the first of our garden grown fruit already. David has finished lining out the big cupboard under the house, has redecorated the girls' room, and has plans to complete his study next winter. We have booked the painter and carpet layers for late January, so after returning from Christmas at the shack, it's back to work on the house in earnest. We have plans for 1995 which involve overseas travel, all the family and David's 4½ months of long service leave.

Kerry has applied for a scholarship at Tas Uni to do a doctorate in Urban Planning, and is eagerly awaiting the result.  If she is unsuccessful, it's back to work at the Antarctic Foundation or maybe a stint in the South Pacific with the Overseas Volunteers Placement Scheme or maybe something else exciting that pops up.

We would like to take this opportunity to all those friends and relatives who put up with our inundation last Christmas. It was wonderful to see you all. Just remember that Tasmania is a good place for a holiday, and we have plenty of spare accomodation.