Christmas

One thing about living over in Australia is the nice fact that Christmas is slap bang in the middle of Summer. As a result the traditional Christmas lunch is just a little daunting a prospect. Where as in England the lunch is something warming and heartily filling, over here the heat of summer means that Christmas lunch consists of barbeque and salad. It’s just more appropriate.

However back in the 80’s a group of Irish backpackers started having a Christmas lunch in the heart of winter. They chose the coldest month and thus the Christmas in July was born. As this weekend happened to be the 25th July we decided that we would also honour the concept of a winter Christmas. I have to say that the Australians are happy to promote the concept, the snow fields are leaden with nearly a whole inch of snow and most of the ski-lifts are running skiers up hills to take advantage. A snowy Christmas is an advertisers dream and Australian resorts offer lots of Christmas themed events in the not so Alpine region.

Christmas Decorations

We agreed that we would each buy a secret Santa ($10 maximum) and have a party round at our friends house. We arrived early in the morning and drank a traditional Christmas beer, Boags as Duncan is Tasmanian. They had tastefully decorated although the use of a Palm rather than a real tree was a little unorthodox. Lights strung around the room and baubles hung over the window. Settling down to start traditional festive activities (i.e. watch movies on the TV) they then decided to introduce us to the newest member of their family.

Tassie is a 12 week old tabby kitten, who loves to chase things and dig her claws into furniture, plants and people. She had been collected in the middle of the week and was getting used to her surroundings. This was more like it, Christmas day with a mad little one playing with their new toys. Yes she did get a present although not from us as we had no idea she existed. She has two small black marks above her eyes that resemble devil horns hence the name, Tassie as in Tasmanian Devil. Of course the two girls were smitten by the bundle of fur and this meant they were kept busy during the important movie fest, sadly no Bond but we can always wait for December for that. Gifts were exchanged, we received a coffee maker and gave elephant clip (not to be used to hold real elephants), DVD and Toblerone (a whole meter of it).

Moira and Tassie

Lunch consisted of Duck, roast with all the veggies and roast potatoes that would be requisite on any European table. I got to carve, although actually hack would be a more appropriate turn of phrase, never got the hang of slicing meat off poultry so instead I just remove as much of it as possible from the carcass. More drink, including a delightful Plum Pudding beer, very festive, then we retired to the lounge for more TV. Doctor who, now that is Christmassy. We played games, smart ass – a game rather like Going for gold (old TV program in Europe), and discussed the year we have had, well we played games anyway. All the while a frolicking kitten playfully chased things and deftly tried to eat our food.

Finally we sat down to watch our beloved team beat the Western Bulldogs to take their unbeaten tally of games to an impressive 17. Seventeen rounds and still we are the only unbeaten team left in the competition, only five more games to go so we could end the year unbeaten, which would be great.

The only slightly nagging thing about the whole day, apart from it being the wrong month that is, was the simple fact that even in Winter here in Australia the sun was still blindingly strong through the window. There was no real sense of dark and cold evenings, although it does actually drop to a depressingly low temperature overnight here and sometimes there has even been mist and frost outside in the morning when we are setting off to work. No as we sat watching the doctor save the world we had the strong distinct shadows of the sun shining brightly through the blinds covering the windows. It may be Christmas in July but it is definitely not Christmas in England, thankfully!

Finally my favourite sight in Australia so far, St Kilda vs Geelong final score:

Winning

The computer is fixed, well as near as can be. We have internet and we also have a version of office, ish. So life can continue at a nearly normal pace.

Well unfortunately we were not the lucky one’s.

Last night saw the Oz Lotto prize money climb to an unprecedented $106 million. The highest ever prize in the country ever, as a result the lotto outlets were doing a storming trade and plenty of syndicates were sprouting up at work. The promise of untold riches was just too alluring and we bought ourselves a ticket. After all $90 Million, this is what the estimated jackpot would be, is an incredibly large amount of money in most currencies.
What would we do with the spoils though, this was the topic of conversation as the draw counted down. Moira suggested giving $50m to charity. Very noble you may think, but wait, that’s my money as well. Now I am not entirely without some egalitarian motives and would honestly donate a sizeable sum to charity. Without asking for any foundation or grant be named after me to boot. However giving away over half the money, now that just sounds a little hasty to me. Sure, once the house in London is paid off and the new house purchased in Oz then we would be having difficulty spending the rest, well actually no we wouldn’t. After the houses come the boats, one speedy little number for the fun in the sun days, then a second gin palace style mobile home. Of course these will incur Marina charges so we have to put some money away there.

So houses, boats and ultimately car. The car would have to say something about us, so would probably have to be the greenest car in the world. Let’s not destroy the planet just to get between the house and the marine here. Some electric or hybrid model will do. Although I would also just love to have a V8 muscle car, on standby for when the hoons (mad hooligan drivers) are in the neighbourhood. Just for show you understand.

After cars I suppose there are the holidays and what better than a small holiday home in New Zealand, close to the slopes and just a small cheap flight away. I would not consider buying a jet as this is just more money than it’s worth, especially when the service on commercial airlines is so, well so, so crap! The details with owning and running an aircraft would just bore me and also give someone an opportunity to siphon off funds. So no plane!

Now there are the incursions back to old blighty and also bringing people back to Oz on regular visits. My parents wouldn’t fly so they would have to have some kind of extended cruise, and they would have to do this with friends so there are quite a few people on this boat, luckily we will be able to meet them at the dock in our own gin palace. After all if you have just won $90 million you cannot tell people they have to pay to visit, because we gave it all away!! No trips arranged for anyone that wants one, on the double quick smart.

And owning these boats, houses and cars means we will finally have space for dogs, cats and maybe horses, although I have to admit this is strictly for the house, I am not sure that Horses can drive or are particularly good on boats. I like horses but again they are a drain on resources. Vet bills, housing, feeding and training all take their toll on the funds and we need to bear this in mind.

Give $50 million away, sorry I don’t concur with this at all. I suggest an initial payment of maybe $10million to assorted good causes and an ongoing appropriation of funds into other good causes. This will prevent charity organisation suffering from Mining Donkey syndrome, where a charity is so rich it could even buy Dave Stewart form the Eurhythmics. In addition it allows for the careful application of funds to the enjoying the rest of my life process I am looking forward.

However as I can unfortunately report, the jackpot was shared between a man in Adelaide and a couple on the gold coast. Not that I really play the lottery and never really give any kind of thought about what I would do with the money if I ever did win something of that magnitude. Well not much anyway.

Saints go head to head with Geelong on Sunday, both teams are unbeaten and, given that a draw is the least likely result in Aussie rules matches, it is being touted as the match of the season. We already have tickets and are gearing up for a day of sport, as Wimbledon closes on the same day. It will not make too much difference who wins on Sunday as both teams are looking like finalists at this stage of the competition but it will give the supporters plenty of bragging rights. Go the saints! Oh yeay and go that Scottish kid who plays for England in the tennis thing!