Dear friends and relatives

We have had another very busy and productive year which once again has gone too quickly.

Kerry's year included several work assignments but mostly centred on craft, domestic and historical pursuits.  The work we put into the chickens and the garden last year, certainly paid off .  Our meat birds were a great success and we are repeating it this year.  We enjoyed hatching chicks and collecting eggs, not to mention eating them.  Our chooks are hard working, doing their fair share of food production and garden maintenance.  The cats are all well and working hard on border control and regularly bring us evidence of their vigilance.  They are absolutely no use as guard cats, though, as they stay well away from the beautiful white goshawk that has been casing our chicken run. We will have a bumper crop of apricots, peaches, apples and tomatoes this year, and have already enjoyed  a good strawberry and red currant season.

Always busy making something, some of Kerry's handicrafts can be seen on the Hobbies page on our website.  Spending time with friends at spinning, hand and machine knitting groups is a highlight of each month.  The Sandy Bay Historical Society has had another good year, we never seem to run out of interesting activities and speakers.  Kerry gave a paper at the Tasmanian Local History Conference on "The Worst Road in the Colony".

Easter was spent with Kerry's parents in Newcastle as Kerry's mother has been seriously ill.  Sadly she died in October, and while the occasion was one we would have deferred, it was wonderful to catch up with so many relatives and lots of Mum's friends.  Kerry spoke at the service on the powerful role of mothers in passing on wisdom and the shaping of families.

Kerry has great plans for 2004 which include another round the world trip.  A visit up the West Coast of USA and Canada to Alaska, back to Ireland for another family reunion, a Spinning and Knitting Retreat in Scotland, this time on the Isle of Mull, and some time floating on the canals of East Anglia.  Kerry will be away over three months, and David hopes to join her for the UK leg.

Alex has been working hard on the Alicia's property in Leslie Vale, with 12 acres, horses, chickens, dogs and cats.  His cute little kitten Bluey, has grown into a handsome cat adept at catching rabbits.  He enjoys his work at Vodaphone and is moving through several secondments, gaining more skills and experience all the time.  He still plays soccer with Taroona, and enjoys a social game of netball, where he was awarded the Best and Fairest for the season.

Christopher finished his first year as an apprentice chef at Irish Murphy's and headed off with friends for a surfing holiday.  After a brief return to Tasmania doing a stint of apple picking, Chris went back to the mainland to further his career.  He had an offer of a shared house with Tasmanian friends attending the University of Newcastle, so headed north.  He arrived in Newcastle on the Thursday, the group moved to a new house on the Friday and on Saturday, Kerry rang him to say there was an ad on the Newcastle Herald's website, for a 2nd year chef nearby.  Chris responded that he had already seen the ad and had an appointment that afternoon.  He started work there on the next Wednesday.  Not a bad week's work Chris.  Chris lives a few minutes from the beach and the restaurant, and manages without a car.  It has been good for him to develop a relationship with some of his cousins and his grandparents.  Chris is planning a surfing holiday overseas when his second year is complete, then may look for a 3rd year position in a big commercial kitchen, preferably a minute's walk from a wicked break.

Phillipa has had an outstanding year finishing 2nd year  Law with 3 distinctions and 1 High Distinction.  Phil played soccer, basketball and netball again this year and took on a coaching role in junior girls' basketball.  Casual jobs were also a big part of the year.  Phillipa started to use her advocacy skills by successfully negotiating a better payrate at the restaurant and dealing sensibly with problems.  Hard lessons to learn, but gradually she is seeing the truth of her parents' advice to study hard or you'll be on the bottom of the pecking order for the rest of your life.  Phil turned her hand to stencilling and produced a very nice border in her room, and she has a growing collection of indoor plants.

Victoria came back from her trip to California to settle into life in Hobart.  She finished Year 12 at Hobart College with a good tertiary entrance score and passes and credits.  Again playing in the State Lacrosse team, she had fun at the mainland national championships, though poor little Tassie has some tough competition.  Victoria continued to play cello in the Tasmanian Youth Orchestra and bass guitar in the Youth Music Tasmania Band. Mum bought her two silver silky hens which she has christened "The Fullets", and she cares for the chickens when Mum and Dad are away.   She likes working at Macdonalds but washing dishes at the other restaurant is hard work.  The management has trained Phil and Victoria to wait on tables and that is a little better, though not when you spill things on the customers!  Victoria is waiting on offers, and has applied for BSc. in biotechnology at UTas Hobart, though she announced yesterday that biomed at Launceston looked good.  This may have something to do with the boyfriend interested in a course at that campus.  Hopefully we will have the two girls at Hobart campus, within walking distance of home, and under their father's supervision.  Occasionally.

As usual, David has had a very busy year. His twelve month contract at Utas has gone very quickly. Semester 1 was spent lecturing, as well as working on design of a Water Cooled cable Measurement System for BRAR, an Italian company. Semester 2 also involved lecturing and more design work, with David jetting off to Pegognaga and Udine in Italy in late August, complete with 60k of excess baggage. During his 2 weeks in Italy, David managed a trip to Milano to visit a technology museam, where he boned up on Leonardo da Vinci, and then another trip to Bologna where he spent an enjoyable morning at Villa Griffone, the boyhood home of Guglielmo Marconi. After 2 weeks in Italy, David spent a few days in England staying with Stuart and Gillian Swan, and checking out odd museums like the National Waterways Museum (yes - he still wants to spend time on a narrow boat!) and an aviation museum.

The August trip was a success technically, with David returning home with a promise of an extension to the contract. Since his return home, he has been busily finalising the remainer of the Italian Job as he fondly calls it, and will be leaving for another 2 weeks in Italy just after Christmas to install the complete prototype system in a steel mill.

During the latter part of 2003, David has also been working on the design of a Chip Washing Machine at Utas. Believe it or not, this is not for washing potato chips, woodchips or integrated circuits!!! The good news towards the end of 2003 was that David's contract was renewed for another 6 months. In semester 1 of 2004 he will be lecturing again.

David has remained active in Engineers Australia. He helped with the judging of the Engineering Excellence awards, and has also taken on the role of Chairman of the Board of the Information, Telecommunication and Electronic Engineering College of Engineers Australia (ITEE College). On December 12, he managed to combine an ITEE College Board meeting in Hobart with Radio Foundation Day celebrations. This year the event was less structured, but a good time was had by all participants. Highlights of the night were receiving a message from Villa Griffone, and  again communicating with Len and Liz Zedel in St John's NFLD.

David has also remained active in the Battery Point Sullivans Cove Community Association, the Marieville Residents Association and the Council of Hobart Progress Associations, serving on the Dental Board of Tasmania, as well being an active member of the Morris Minor Car Club of Tasmania. And on the Morris front, David finally succumbed and bought a "new" car. He is now the proud owner of an (almost) fully restored 1963 Morris Minor Traveller, complete with 1098cc (big for a Morris Minor) engine. He also bought Kerry a "new" Peugeot - this time a 505 instead of a 504, so for a while he had 6 cars on the road and two non-going spares. The faithful Mitsubishi van has now been passed onto Alexander, while the old blue 504 was sold back to the original owner. Both David and Kerry are looking forward to seeing our NSW friends at the next Australian National Morris Minor Rally, which will be held in Hobart at Easter in 2005.

David has continued to upgrade the home computers, with the old 386's running Win 3.11 finally being pensioned off and replaced with three newer Pentium  boxes running NT4.

Overall, the Edwards family has had a very busy and productive year. We wish all our friends a happy and successful 2004.