2023 Christmas Letter
24/12/23 15:23 Filed in: Christmas Letters
Dear all,
Well, it’s Christmas Eve and I’m late writing my Christmas Letter again.
I have been busy in the last few weeks working on home automations for the house, discovering little simple ways to build sensors around the house so that I can automate things like automatically lowering the blinds when the afternoon sun gets in the room (and onto the computers). The latest project is figuring out if I can get it to automatically close the garage doors when I go out, instead of having to issue a voice command. So this is probably going to be a short letter as I’d like to get back to solving that little first world dilemma of mine.
We took to “revenge travel” this year in a “big” way, more for trying to maintain our Frequent Flyer status than anything, hence they are always short trips. We went to Tasmania, Wellington and……PERTH!
We continue to like Tasmania because of the weather and produce. There’s also interesting places to see. For example, this time we visited the Pooseum (a museum of animal / insects poo - very fascinating and doesn’t stink)!
We also visited Old Hobart Town which is a miniature model village of early Tasmanian settlement. I found out that Tasmanian was “part of” New South Wales, ruled by the same governor.
We found this wonderful cafe serving great breakfast so we don’t go for the one in the hotel anymore, which WAS good but has gone downhill since they changed chef.
Look at this, how could we not want to have breakfast (and afternoon tea) there?
Perth is another Australian city which I’ve never visited in my over 40 years of living in Australia. My very good friend from university now lives there and during lockdown, we were exchanging info about where to go to get good food (as you do when in a lockdown), that he convinced me that I need to visit Perth to try the Singapore / Malaysian food.
As is the becoming of a tradition (for me) of visiting an Australian city for the first time, I had a slight little accident in Perth, spraining my ankle slightly (luckily it didn’t affect my movement too much), but I put that down to part and parcel of the new tradition and it was nothing compared to the other unusual experiences we had. (I also had a slight accident on my first visit to Hobart.)
Western Australia is a very big state compared to New South Wales, but the population of Perth is only about a quarter of Sydney - but they still have traffic jams! But no toll roads, now that’s a plus!
They have some very beautiful weather and scenery. We mainly visited a few historical places like museums and war memorials:
And this is the first time in my life I got to see the Indian Ocean (and touched it):
But we also got to visit two hospitals as part of this trip:
Without boring you with all the details, mum went to hospital twice. The second time was the day before my birthday and I thought I’d have to change my birthday dinner plans (as in, she wasn’t going to make it out alive). Turned out she was dehydrated and exhausted (from the flight and the first hospital visit) and I had an extra peaceful and thankful birthday this year.
I wasn’t enjoying Perth up till then, even though I was enjoying the food and catching up with my Uni mate. I swore that was the first and last time I’d visit Perth. But once mum stopped visiting the hospitals, I was able to enjoy and see the beauty side of Perth.
I became an uncle again this year, gaining one nephew and two nieces.
After the tragedy of losing Kismet last year. we have not one, not two but three new additions to the family this year - forget about peace and quiet in the house!
Please say hi to Chance, Kizzy and Maddy (taken along with our beloved Kismet):
The picture that started it all was this:
May was talking about adopting maybe two of this family and I said the one on the left (Kizzy) looks a bit like Kismet, with the stroke of white down her face. So I said maybe we’ll get the two black and whites (we’ve never had a black and white cat with the “centre parting” ).
See the resemblance?
What followed was a game of trying to track these kittens down as they were not 8 weeks old and needed to be desexed etc. I had to get aggressive with someone who finally gave me the tracking numbers and May was pretty much calling the RSPCA every day trying to track them down. The RSPCA, by the way, the left hand doesn’t talk to the right hand…so I’ve stopped my donations to them.
8 weeks after these kittens were born, we were driving 40 minutes down the freeway (each way) to a pet store to pick them up! That was for Kizzy (a variation on “Kis” of “Kismet” ) and Maddy (which was supposed to be the “met” part of “Kismet” but ended up being “Maddy” ). Out of the 5 kittens, 3 had been sent to the pet store. The other 2 still waiting to be desexed etc.
We felt sorry for the remaining brother there and I did try to get people in the pet store to adopt the brother but no one was interested. The day after, May rang the store and the lady said the brother is missing his sisters and had kept meowing. That’s when May decided to also adopt the brother, hence the name “Chance”, first thing in the morning of Australia Day.
They are from the same mother and share very similar traits.
But they also have very different personalities. Kizzy is the most sociable one. She says hi when she sees you, comes for cuddles, strokes etc and purrs on demand…just like Kismet. She’s the PR cat - customer facing - of the 3. She has to keep her clients happy so they continue to get fed. I’m so glad she’s very much like Kismet. I sometimes forget she’s not Kismet. She’s my favourite.
Maddy and Chance are not customer facing. They are more like backroom staff. They don’t really say hi except to mama (“feed me!” ).
Maddy is the prima donna. She’s got this “deer in the headlights” look, like Miss Piggy (“Look at me, I’m pretty!” ). Therefore she’s also called Miss Piggy. She sits and looks out the window most of the time, as in “Oh Ro-meow Ro-meow, where for art thou, Ro-meow?”. Sadly, there are no cats in shining armour (or fur) around to try and break her out of her castle, so she sighs and kinda accepts her fate.
Chance is the boy. He does nothing around the house (like me) and lets Kizzy work on the goodwill. He also bites a lot (he’s banned from my room and the home theatre) and it’s difficult to stroke him or pat him (except mama). He and me don’t have that close a relationship. He’s mama’s favourite though so rest assured he gets fed no matter what.
He’s mama’s boy because when May goes out, he cries and go searching for her.
But recently, when May was out, he came to me and wanted cuddles….maybe our relationship is improving.
Cooking wise, I expanded my cooking skills into Chinese cooking this year, as I figured if I was cooking for myself, after a while I’d crave the Chinese food I normally have. So I decided to start with the most common one - fried rice.
Yes, my Chinese cooking all done in a carbon steel wok. Yep, had to learn about how to look after it too. I’m the only one in the household using MY wok.
From fried rice I expanded my repertoire to the old Cantonese favourite Beef Chow Fun (乾炒牛河) and the Singapore favourite Cha Kuay Teow (炒粿條). I then came across a recipe from Taipei Shangri-La on making Drunken Chicken, which led me into a research of which brand and what type of ShaoXing wine I should get, especially when you want to make Drunken Chicken (醉雞).
From there, I discovered that one of my favourite flat rice noodles dishes (with egg gravy 滑蛋鴛鴦) which we ordered regularly at the Singapore / Malaysian restaurants and pay a small fortune, can be easily made at home without paying a lot - and I use big, yummy Tiger Prawns!
This turned out to be my best dish! Now I don’t have to order this when I go to a Malaysian / Singapore restaurant.
I’m also working on perfecting my first FUSION Singapore-Italian Fried Prawn Noodles:
I’ll let you know when I’m 100% happy with it.
That’s all from me this year.
As the years go on, I’m reminded more and more of those close to me getting perhaps not as fit as before (physically and / or mentally) and I feel great sadness that things aren’t the same anymore (and political correctness is ruining everything).
All I can share with you are just that: the memories I have.
I miss my dad. I miss Kismet. Here’s one of her taken at her last Christmas with us:
Let’s enjoy while we can still have each other’s company and make new memories.
May this Christmas be a safe and memorable one for you. Take care.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the music of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Michael Bublé.
Your friend,
Bevan
