Merry Christmas, everyone

[Pavel]

Here in Melbourne OZ it was 31C on Christmas eve, 38C on Christmas day and 31C forecast for today when two of our sons and three grandchildren are joining us for lunch - salads, ham and a cold turkey which was prepared earlier.

I nee better health for 2017 as my right knee blew up with a lot of osteo athritis which made cycling too painful. It took me six weeks to get an appointment with an orthopaedic specialist on 21 December ( and that was as a private patient) and all he told me was that my knee was not bad enough for a knee replacement and I should try to cycle again and do other light exercise.  So I have started to walk the rescue greyhound again, fortunately she is a lazy beast and never wants to walk far and after Wednesday I will try to turn the pedals again and see what happens until I see the doc again on 14 February.

On an even more somber note I met a bloke at Christmas Eve Mass who I see at St John's from time. Back in the 1980s I was a Group Leader and Brian was  one of the Scout Leaders. We were much of the same age. Anyway Brian said that two of his fellow Scout Leaders had croaked during the year, one with cancer and one with a massive heart attack.

Maybe a dodgy knee at 74 is not the end of the world after all!.

Mike

Nice to read that you gave a nice home to such a magnificent sort of dog.  I once saw one run ... it was beautiful.

[John Saxby]

Nice quote from the Arch, Dave, and one I hadn't heard.  I'll pass it on.

We hear this adaptation of the old saying, reflecting life in the Ottawa Valley, I guess:

"Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll sit in a boat and drink beer all day."

Cheers,  John