Kia Ora,

Ann had a dental appointment first day of her holidays as she needed an old metal molar cap removing because it was infected. That meant going to the dentist an hour before the appointment, collecting an antibiotic script, going to her pharmacy, collecting and taking the antibiotics, hanging around for an hour then going back to the dentist. She has to have antibiotics every time she has something done at the dentist now to protect her hip replacement. Then the dentist had to give her extra anaesthetic (and it hurt which it normally doesn’t). The tooth was very infected and he had to scrape away at the bone to clean it all up. Still he only charged her $284 instead of $384. Then she spent the next few days on soft food and saline rinses. Unfortunately the infection had made the bone between the gum and sinus brittle and it broke leaving a small hole - which meant that whenever Ann did a saline rinse in her mouth it all squirted out through her nose! A great party trick maybe but not very pleasant so back to the dentist for minor surgery, more antibiotics and stitches which will be removed on 5th January. Good thing we didn't have plans over the Christmas/New Year period as Ann wasn't feeling too wonderful.

Our feijoa tree is blooming madly – there will be a huge glut of fruit come next May. It’s a shame we can’t stand the bloody fruit – we give every single one away.
	The jasmine is flowering prolifically too – and the scent is gorgeous.
The lilies are also in full bloom.

We’re well into mowing, strimming, weeding and weed spraying now. We’ve had so much rain this spring that everything is growing madly.

Peter had a day out with some colleagues from work - they won a trip to Waiheke Island for a wine tasting and 3 course lunch.
	Peter was on the second trip in the smaller of the two helicopters.
A bit misty going over central Auckland.
	The Naval base at Devonport.
Mudbrick Vineyard. The food was excellent but the service a bit slow - we were seated at 12.45 but didn't get to the main course until 3.10pm which everyone had to bolt down as we had to leave at 3.40 to get the ferry back to Auckland.
	With Ann being at home for the last part of the month we have not had to save the milk bottles for when we go to work. Maxie still enjoys playing with them when we leave one for her.
As usual we used one of our own trees as a Christmas tree - Maxie had to supervise Peter very closely to make sure he cut it to the right size.
	Christmas day was quiet, we opened our presents then went outside to work on our bonsai trees before having our traditional Chinese meal for dinner.