Our Christmas message 2008

Firstly, to all our family and friends, a very blessed Christmas and our best wishes for a lovely 2009. We do miss you guys we left behind in Cape Town and South Africa still (strangely enough........)

Time to reflect on 2008, with it almost being behind us, and all in all a pretty crappy year for the Ballys. The start sort of set the tone, with Jan being diagnosed with Endrometrial Cancer, the operations, nightly and daily visits to the Royal Brisbane & Woman's Hospital for Radiation treatment and Chemotherapy was not our best. Jan being the trooper she is, maintained her sense of dignity and tried to do too much back at home, whilst trying to come to terms with feeling just like "death warmed up" most of the time, the nights of no sleep, sitting on the loo or being sick, and I think summed it up when she told me "it's a tiredness you can't sleep off" - she still has a few times when she is just so tired she can't walk around the shops too long or get through everything she wants to in the day.

This was a huge learning curve for us, and we found that there are a few people who didn't know how to react to what we were going through, wanted to stay away (as if it was contagious)and then there were the few who just astounded us with their generosity, love and support, of not only Jan, but our whole family. To those of you, and you know who you are, our heartfelt thanks - how can we ever repay you?

Emma did so well at Uni, culminating in her getting her degree in December with First Class Honours from QUT (one of only 4 I think)with a GPA of over 6.3 (out of 7 for her whole degree started at Cape Town University) - We are so proud of her and her future is looking very bright all of a sudden. She and James seem very happy together, and Emmie has been very involved with the youth at the Ashgrove Baptist Church as well.

Iano, has had a good year, stunning us all with a report at year end that had only A's and B's on it for his work. Has enjoyed his cricket and been making some good runs more recently for the Valley's District Club. Was selected for the Queensland trials for his age group (U14) but did not go for minor reasons, and played "warehouse cricket" in the off season, and was asked to trials for the Ansley Le Franke trophy side U16 which he made. (this is for the boys who are more serious about their cricket). I am again the coach of Ian's team this year and enjoying the time we have together. Ian is getting used to his braces now, and will shortly have very good looking straight teeth......

In February, Emmie and I will have been in Australia for three years, Jan and Ian shortly thereafter, and we will all become Australians in 2009 - except Ryan, who hopefully will be coming over on a permanent basis in a few months time. I know this will not please everyone, but things do move on for us, and this is the logical conclusion to the process we started three years ago. We think we have made the right move, and we are much more settled here than we think we could have been back in Cape Town, with better security, prospects and way of life. We don't like all that is represented by the name Australia, in fact there are many things that are not too great, but on the whole, it's been the right thing for US.

I have been at Hagglunds Drives over a year now, and am very happy in my job, much more settled than I ever was at Komatsu, and the company has a very nice Ethos about it and lovely people to work with. The National role is also more challenging than the one I had with Komatsu (just being Queensland focused). I have been on 4 overseas trips this year, South Africa in March (to recruit two guys who now work for us), Chile and Brazil for a Hagglunds Conference in April and the USA (Los Angeles, Dallas, Columbus Ohio) in May, as well as Sweden and Finland in December.

I have taken to Mountain biking with Ian and we bought two new Scott Mountain Bikes, and when I'm not writhing around on the forest footpaths with broken ribs, we enjoy each others company and the rides we do together. Ian has done a lot of MTB at school each week with a group there and is becoming quite a good rider. I still enjoy riding with my "other wife" - aka Jim Cohen and Dave McGowan on Sundays on our road bikes around Brissie. We did two big rides this year, the Mt Cooth-tha Classic and the Brisbane to Gold Coast ride to Surfers Paradise - much fun and sore muscles too.

We went to Coolangatta in January and will do again in 2009 for the Australia day long weekend, will be up at Noosa for the time between Christmas and New Year, and went away with Ryan to Coolangatta when he visited as well during the year.

We hope to be a complete family over this side of the pond in the near future with Ryan. He has been so busy at Capestorm opening new branches in Johannesburg and Cape Town recently, was starting to come right after having had most of his stuff stolen early in the year and moving house to a nice place, but was recently told he will have to move again. Wish we could be there to support him more.

Other family news is Graham getting married to Gaile - we were very chuffed for them both, and can't wait to see them in March for my 50th Birthday celebrations. Roy spends more time overseas than ever and Dave and Fiona have now been in London for nearly 6 months and by all accounts having a ball. For the first Christmas we will have no family with us, as Roy and his whole family are overseas, but we plan a great time with all our Aussie mates, and am sure we will still have a great time, also with our "ex South African mates"

Once again, have a happy Christmas and a very good 2009 - from the Ballys Downunder..