Merry Christmas Paddo, Walker, Trackie, MR and RWB

[ism22]

Thought I'd personalise this one for some of the regulars. Peace and love to all of you... hope this x-mas is awesome whether you're quietly mulling up a fat bong while reading Menadue's tales of how x-mas is all a big anti-China conspiracy or sitting down quietly with the family while looking out to the Brindabellas.

My day in summary:

- We got up early to open all the x-mas pressies, take photos and whip out some Christmas cake (from Oscar's in Weetangera). Some carols magically started playing thanks to old mate Siri and they're still going (though the list begins with Mariah Carey and is now down to the 'who the fark is this and why/when was it ever popular?' tunes).

- I've taken myself out for a 30km jog (around the Pinnacle / Painter, Lake Ginninderra and then up around Umbagong in Charnwood before returning home).

- Now I'm having some Vietnamese coffee (was a gift from my father in-law - surprisingly good as their coffee's generally a bit ordinary) and some more Oscar's x-mas cake.

- Next I'm gonna clean the barbie to cook up some lobsters, prawns, scallops and barramundi. Then I'll take out some cold salads and whip out the homebrew / limoncello. The door's open to the neighbourhood so I imagine we'll have a few mates ducking by... including The General, the (various) wogs up the road, some pommie geeza (forget his name) and my wife's friends.

- Moving into the evening the limoncello will continue to flow while I play everybody a solid recording of 9 Lessons and Carols (it's my favourite religious take on x-mas... beautiful music... reminds me of the good old days when I was a St Andrew's chorister and organist... hang on... maybe I'm just making shyte up now... meh... MAY THE LIBATIONS [LIMONCELLO] FLOOOOOOW!! [OR MULL AND MENADUE IF THAT'S YOUR THING - IT'S CHRISTMAS SO DO IT YOUR WAY]).

[rented tracksuit]

Merry Xmas to you too mate.

Just woken from the food coma and about to smash it all again. I’ve eaten soo much food today , I’ve already been approached half a dozen times to play Santa next year!

[Andrew Walker]

Merry Christmas Izzy and everyone else. Bug night at my Sisters on Christmas Eve with all the family Lots to eat and plenty to drink Quiet day at home yesterday then we went to the beach in the afternoon and managed to catch some nice waves Then we had a lovely dinner at home last night A good Aussie Christmas Day

[mightyrooster]

Merry Christmas to you too Izzy. Hope you had a great day. It was a strange one with the background of storms throughout pretty much the entire afternoon. Christmas Day is usually hot with an occasional storm. I’m having a quiet day today relaxing and watching a bit of cricket…till the storms struck Melbourne as well.

[redwhiteblue]

Hello gentlemen and thank you very much for the messages, thoughts and good wishes. I didn’t even think my account was still active on here.


I have only just been informed that some of you had also sent private messages to others on here before Christmas asking about me but I was not advised of this. It would have been lovely to have received these messages at the time, rather than me coming on here 2 months later to acknowledge you and thank you for taking the time to ask about me. Please feel free to use my email or phone number if you have it so that way you will get through my royal selfness directly in future.


As I explained to Andy on his other thread back at the end of August, I haven’t been looking or ‘lurking’ as he loves to put it so I have not seen any of this. I’ve been knee deep in George and Mildred episodes on youtube and various other 1970’s sitcoms. SBS on Demand sent me an email saying I was in their top 2% of viewers for 2023..all those music/travel/food/historical documentaries did it..but not the South Sydney one..ugh.. that did not make my list of ‘favourites’..


It’s been painful, exhausting, isolating, lonely at times and that’s just me talking about the back end of the 2023 season as a Roosters fan…I had a very large benign tumour removed on the day of the Souths game so I joked that everything ugly, useless and intrusive was taken away that day..


At St Vinnies Private, they line you all up in the same recovery ward afterwards these days and I was next to a guy same age as me who had undergone his 70th procedure..Roosters fan..he said to me “Hey lady, do you think I should go over to Souths Juniors tonight to watch the game?” I replied only if you want to get straight back here after for procedure #71!”…then he started bickering with the guy across the aisle about over who had the bigger….medical file…he said mines bigger than yours…whip yours out and we’ll compare..! We were all drugged to the eyeballs..I said to the nurse “They are talking about whipping out medical files..aren’t they? Yikes!


Got a funny text from my Vermin cousin a few days later..”Hi Bernie, my apologies..You can have Latrell back..You were spot on when you warned me..Anyway, Souths didn’t deserve to make the finals. Good luck..cuzzin…”


I have to have some more tests in April (just blood pressure etc) and work has restructured our team so I’m back working from home full time on lesser hours as a Fraud Investigator on a special task force project which is great for exercising my banking brain, so have lots to be grateful for.


My new managing director arranged for Michael Maguire to give us a motivational speech on Friday afternoon about bouncing back after adversity. He has had an interesting and very public journey. Shame the 2014 grand final powerpoint slide was up on my monitor for way too many seconds than necessary…made a cup of tea during that part…so I could walk out and leave the room..thank goodness for WFH..and mute buttons..!

.
I’ll pop into my cover versions thread and check out the entries there and leave you to enjoy the 2024 season.

I will take advantage of Luna New Year to returned the kindness extended to me on here by wishing those forum members a very happy New Year of the Dragon. It’s the only mythical creature of the Chinese zodiac and means good luck, strength, intelligence and good fortune.

[redwhiteblue]

Paddo Colt 61 Just leaving a message for you in this thread as I know you mentioned ages ago that the lady of your household is gluten free and that meal times were difficult. I do recommend Hudson's Bakery at 238 Oxford St. The owner is so lovely and came and did a home delivery for me when I was unable to get out, even though I'm local enough not to be part of her delivery zone. She gave me way more than I ordered and I was able to share all sorts of treats with non-gluten free friends who couldn't taste the difference.

I stick to seafood and salad/veges anyway so that doesn't involve gluten.

Hope this helps!

[mightyrooster]

Hello gentlemen and thank you very much for the messages, thoughts and good wishes. I didn’t even think my account was still active on here.


I have only just been informed that some of you had also sent private messages to others on here before Christmas asking about me but I was not advised of this. It would have been lovely to have received these messages at the time, rather than me coming on here 2 months later to acknowledge you and thank you for taking the time to ask about me. Please feel free to use my email or phone number if you have it so that way you will get through my royal selfness directly in future.


As I explained to Andy on his other thread back at the end of August, I haven’t been looking or ‘lurking’ as he loves to put it so I have not seen any of this. I’ve been knee deep in George and Mildred episodes on youtube and various other 1970’s sitcoms. SBS on Demand sent me an email saying I was in their top 2% of viewers for 2023..all those music/travel/food/historical documentaries did it..but not the South Sydney one..ugh.. that did not make my list of ‘favourites’..


It’s been painful, exhausting, isolating, lonely at times and that’s just me talking about the back end of the 2023 season as a Roosters fan…I had a very large benign tumour removed on the day of the Souths game so I joked that everything ugly, useless and intrusive was taken away that day..


At St Vinnies Private, they line you all up in the same recovery ward afterwards these says and I was next to a guy same age as me who had undergone his 70th procedure..Roosters fan..he said to me “Hey lady, do you think I should go over to Souths Juniors tonight to watch the game?” I replied only if you want to get straight back here after for procedure #71!”…then he started bickering with the guy across the aisle about over who had the bigger….medical file…he said mines bigger than yours…whip yours out and we’ll compare..! We were all drugged to the eyeballs..I said to the nurse “They are talking about whipping out medical files..aren’t they? Yikes!


Got a funny text from my Vermin cousin a few days later..”Hi Bernie, my apologies..You can have Latrell back..You were spot on when you warned me..Anyway, Souths didn’t deserve to make the finals. Good luck..cuzzin…”


I have to have some more tests in April (just blood pressure etc) and work has restructured our team so I’m back working from home full time on lesser hours as a Fraud Investigator on a special task force project which is great for exercising my banking brain, so have lots to be grateful for.


My new managing director arranged for Michael Maguire to give us a motivational speech on Friday afternoon about bouncing back after adversity. He has had an interesting and very public journey. Shame the 2014 grand final powerpoint slide was up on my monitor for way too many seconds than necessary…made a cup of tea during that part…so I could walk out and leave the room..thank goodness for WFH..and mute buttons..!

.
I’ll pop into my cover versions thread and check out the entries there and leave you to enjoy the 2024 season.

I will take advantage of Luna New Year to returned the kindness extended to me on here by wishing those forum members a very happy New Year of the Dragon. It’s the only mythical creature of the Chinese zodiac and means good luck, strength, intelligence and good fortune.

Good to see your treatment is going well RWB.

[Paddo Colt 61]

Paddo Colt 61 Just leaving a message for you in this thread as I know you mentioned ages ago that the lady of your household is gluten free and that meal times were difficult. I do recommend Hudson's Bakery at 238 Oxford St. The owner is so lovely and came and did a home delivery for me when I was unable to get out, even though I'm local enough not to be part of her delivery zone. She gave me way more than I ordered and I was able to share all sorts of treats with non-gluten free friends who couldn't taste the difference.

I stick to seafood and salad/veges anyway so that doesn't involve gluten.

Hope this helps!

Thank you RWB I'll certainly keep the bakery in mind though ALDI now has a GF loaf that is suitable and not outrageously priced.

My best girl had a uterine cancer diagnosis some time ago and thought of you often as a result of that. She's had no recurrence after surgery and I'm so very glad to learn that yours was benign. A weight is lifted I'm sure.

[ism22]

Good to see your treatment is going well RWB.

Agreed and good to see you again RWB! I was almost about to make a 'where is RWB?' I knew there was that cancer scare so am still crossing my fingers that it's either gone or treatable.

Not to hijack but I assume I'm a little bit younger and my brother has now been diagnosed with a secondary cancer. Probably a decent reminder for all to get checked regularly (speaking of which, I have a script for a bunch of tests so need to go in and do 'em).

Anyhow I hope that the sit-coms are going well! Sounds like you're living the dream, other than having to sit through rubbish Souffs propaganda. You shoulda asked him how things went in 2013 and then asked "oi weren't you sacked though mate? Sounds a bit like you're milking that one lucky season a bit, ay".

Happy lunar new year! I'd post a picture of my in-laws living it up in Saigon but figure they might not like that. Suffice to say, they're having a good time (no doubt with a lot of Abba playing for the new year + trips to their hometowns, where local moonshine doth flow).

[mightyrooster]

Agreed and good to see you again RWB! I was almost about to make a 'where is RWB?' I knew there was that cancer scare so am still crossing my fingers that it's either gone or treatable.

Not to hijack but I assume I'm a little bit younger and my brother has now been diagnosed with a secondary cancer. Probably a decent reminder for all to get checked regularly (speaking of which, I have a script for a bunch of tests so need to go in and do 'em).

Anyhow I hope that the sit-coms are going well! Sounds like you're living the dream, other than having to sit through rubbish Souffs propaganda. You shoulda asked him how things went in 2013 and then asked "oi weren't you sacked though mate? Sounds a bit like you're milking that one lucky season a bit, ay".

Happy lunar new year! I'd post a picture of my in-laws living it up in Saigon but figure they might not like that. Suffice to say, they're having a good time (no doubt with a lot of Abba playing for the new year + trips to their hometowns, where local moonshine doth flow).

Hope your brother beats his battles too Izzy. I lost both parents to cancer in the space of 11 months to different types of cancer. It took hold of my extended family for 4 straight years. Every time we thought one had overcome their latest battle the other one went downhill and vice versa. We used to say we were struck with some sort of curse. We are now all very vigilant in getting the necessary tests and checks done with the family history.

[redwhiteblue]

Thank you RWB I'll certainly keep the bakery in mind though ALDI now has a GF loaf that is suitable and not outrageously priced.

My best girl had a uterine cancer diagnosis some time ago and thought of you often as a result of that. She's had no recurrence after surgery and I'm so very glad to learn that yours was benign. A weight is lifted I'm sure.

Thanks so much Paddo and 8 procedures later I'm doing better. I'm very relieved to hear about your girl too and I do remember a few years back you mentioning this. We are blessed here in the eastern suburbs in particular with excellent doctors and I gladly sacrifice other expenses in the name of health care. I know you have first hand knowledge of how traumatic and intrusive the whole situation can be and appreciate your genuine concern as I know you had asked about me whilst I was away.

The bus fare from up here return to Bondi Junction is $8.30 so if I did go to Aldi, I'd have to add that to the price of the shopping...

Off topic, I wonder how the fancy ladies of La Jolla will cope with the Rabbitohs being in camp there..there will be lots of clutching of pearls..I've been to San Diego a few times as my niece used to live there and that region is very posh. The size of that stadium in Vegas is migraine inducing..

Here's to a happier, healthier and prosperous 2024!

[redwhiteblue]

Thank you RWB I'll certainly keep the bakery in mind though ALDI now has a GF loaf that is suitable and not outrageously priced.

My best girl had a uterine cancer diagnosis some time ago and thought of you often as a result of that. She's had no recurrence after surgery and I'm so very glad to learn that yours was benign. A weight is lifted I'm sure.

I’m heading up to Hudsons next Saturday morning to get their hot cross buns as I have my next round of appointments. There was a 70% chance of the tumour re-emerging and it’s done just that. I feel like i have a porcupine sitting on my right hip. But the silver lining is that every time I go to the bathroom during a Roosters game, we always score..! Must go get ready now for kick off..