CollinsPlus
E-news
Edition 5. September/October 2008
Editor:
Barbara Collins – admin (at) collinsplus.com
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Index
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Collins Family News
Go to Collins Family in CollinsPlus
Website
Con Collins
Con Collins is the Ground Zero man for this website.
Fathers Day and Dad’s birthday
This year, Judy and Renato invited the family over for a special combined celebration for Father’s
Day and Con’s birthday. As usual, Judy and Renato cooked up a feast for us all to enjoy at a sit down
lunch. It was a lovely day but I suspect Judy and Renato were exhausted by the end of it. Con was the
guest of honour, of course, and enjoyed a delicious cake and lots of presents and cards to celebrate his
86th year! It was really great to catch up with everyone and hear all the recent news. More pics here
Senior Citizens Week
Con went on a couple of outings during Senior Citizen’s Week. See Teres news below.
Con’s Health
Con is doing very well at the moment although his eye sight is deteriorating. He is going occasionally with his mate, Bill, for a social game of bowls. He and Barb go to the Airport West Village when a movie that appeals mutually is showing. Last movie – The Duchess. He is using a special cream at the moment that is supposed to burn off some of the skin conditions that occur as a result of another medication he is on. This prescription would cost him $160 for 12 sachets (tiny amount in each one – whole 12 sachets would not amount to a teaspoon). However, his gold card covers the cost. He has two other scripts that would, in total, amount to more than $200 a month – thank goodness for that gold card!!!!
Graham Collins
(Graham Collins is the first and only son of
Con Collins. Graham
Collins Family)
Tyson and Kate
Here are a few pics of our back yard we took a while ago for the
newsletter. Finally great to have some outdoor space to entertain, relax, have
a few beers, and have a BBQ.
Went to Hamilton Island a couple of weeks ago. Spent 6 nights there with Kate, Lauren (Kate's sister), Steve (Lauren's husband), Matt & Zara (both from UK, spent 3 weeks with us and left last Friday - Matt is Kate's cousin). Had an absolute ball, snorkeled on the Barrier Reef, went to Whitehaven Beach, made extremely good use of the swim up bar each day, and relaxed on the beach.
Just got back from our Annual Yarrawonga trip last night. It was a huge 4 days and now feel knackered, sick, and in need of a holiday which is even more depressing as I go back to work tomorrow after 2 and a half weeks off. I am going to the Gold Coast on Friday for three days for the Indy 500. I was invited by a customer of ours so that should be fun.
Wendy and
Gary
(Special friends of Graham’s family)
Wendy says “It's me
again with another Grandchild Tyler Scott
who was born at Dandenong
Hospitial on 30th August to Hayden and his partner Charelle. This is our 4th
grandchild! We are all good. Gary and I are on holidays in Perth for the month
of October Thanks for your newsletter I really forward to it
Bye love to all Wendy
The Gough Family
Mary Gough is the 3rd girl in the Con and Bridget Collins Family. She was married to Chris Gough. Go to Gough Family page.
Alex
Alex
has written another entertaining chapter in her increasingly busy life. Click here to read about why she is dressed as a mouse
and why she is standing next to an Egyptian in these photos - and lots more!
The Cabrera Family
Judith
Collins is the second girl in the Con and Bridget Collins Family. She is
married to Renato Cabrera. Go to the Cabrera
Family page.
Good
news about my day surgery in the plight to find where blood is coming from in
my urine. Bladder was looked at and it’s not coming from there. We have
exhausted most possibilities and we cannot find the source. So the doctors have
given up looking. It's a total mystery, and one that remains that way I hope.
Still on the health side of things after nearly 3 months of trying to find out why it is incredibly painful under my second toe while walking, I’m coming to the conclusion that I have a stress fracture on the top of my foot that is radiating the pain down to my toe. (Don't ask me how it happened because I have no idea). So I'm off to an orthopedic surgeon next week for him to decide if it needs surgery or if I have to wear a big boot for 6 or so weeks - very fashionable. I’ll fill you in next issue.
Renato and I have been busy with Chilean Festival events (due to Chilean Independence day). It's always a lot of fun, food and dancing, except this year the dancing was a bit awkward with a bung toe/foot but I managed to get a few dances in. It was all good fun as usual.
Renato
and I put on a big birthday party for Dad's (Con's) 86th birthday. We cooked up
a feast for everyone to share. Dad seemed to have a great time with
everyone from the family there.
We have gone out to dinner with Barbara and Paul on the spilt the bill and liked the place so much went out with friends from work to the same place. It is called Max's in Leake Street, Essendon - Extremely huge serves so go there hungry.
Had a great afternoon down at Moonee Valley Terrace Cafe with Cathy and her friends. They have free Sunday afternoon entertainment which turned into a bit of a rage - for me anyway.
Last of
all we have been rather consumed with going back and forth to our house. It's
now probably half way through the repair however they have had to stop to
obtain an Engineer’s report and plan to rebuild the half of the front wall
and the wing that sits out on the veranda. It could be held up for 4-6 weeks
waiting for that. Once that is all done the building supervisor says it won't
take too long to put the rest of it back together. I do hope that by the
next issue I can say it has been finished. That will be one head ache over
and then I begin the next big head ache which will be to deal with the real
estate agents who failed in their duty of care to alert us that the
problem was developing.
The McManus Family
Helen McManus, nee Lennon, was Bridget Collins’ (nee Lennon) eldest sister. She married Patrick McManus and they had four children – Margaret, Kevin, Brian, Patricia and Gerard. Click here for more information on the McManus Family.
Margaret
says that she and Terry have been very busy replacing floorboards in their
shearing shed - the bearers underneath have been eaten out by white ants! She
says the work is keeping them very fit.
She sent me the cutting below that she found in The Age Epicure on 14/10/08. Sue was Margaret’s Godmother. Margaret remembers Sue telling, and showing, her that hotel as it was where Sue and Con spent their honeymoon night before they continued their travels down to Torquay for their honeymoon.
I was asking Dad about the hotel and he confirmed that it was the one they stayed at for their honeymoon night. He continued on to tell me that when they got to Torquay, they sat out in the sun and got SO sunburnt, they were not able to even touch each other for several days.
The Teres Family
Paul Teres is husband of Barbara Collins,
daughter of Con Collins. Go to Teres Family
page.
Barb and Paul’s Second wedding anniversary
For our 2nd wedding anniversary on 27 August 2008, we
traveled to Echuca for a short break. We caught a tram into Spencer Street, then a train to Murchison and a coach to
Echuca. We stayed in the Steampacket
Inn which was built in the 1870s and is now a National Trust Classified
boutique Bed & Breakfast. It’s on the old Port of Echuca. We walked a lot,
ate a lot and had a paddle steamer ride on the Emmy Lou to Morrison’s Winery
where we had lunch before being picked up by the Emmy Lou for a return trip to
the Port of Echuca. We had lovely two days there, with great weather, before
catching a coach to Bendigo and a train back to Footscray where we caught a
tram home almost to our doorstep! After our visit, we noticed that they were
reviewed by The Age. If you are interested, read the review here.
Combined celebration for Lisa’s birthday and Fathers’ Day
It only happens every seventh year – and 2008 was one of those years where Fathers’ Day and Lisa’s birthday fell on the same day. So it was a good reason to have a double celebration! Lisa invited family to Barbarino’s Restaurant on the Friday night before her birthday, and then on Fathers’ Day, we all celebrated the double event at Lisa and Dave’s place.
Sam’s 1st birthday
Sam turned one on 19th September. He had a BBQ party for friends and family at his local play centre. The adults enjoyed the BBQ and Sam enjoyed his special ‘1’ cake as you will see in these pictures. Here he is getting a big birthday kiss from Grandpa Paul.
A visit to the farm
Paul and Lisa went with Andrew and the boys to the Myuna Animal Farm in September. This is a favourite place for the boys to visit and they had fun showing Lisa and Paul around. More pictures here
Paul’s Red Cross Donation milestone
Paul was invited to take part in this year’s Red Cross Milestone Donor’s Ceremony to celebrate his 250th donation. This year it was at The Victory Room at Telstra Dome. Each milestone group was asked to stand when their milestone was called out. There were hundreds of men and women in the first group to stand – the 100 milestone. The 150, 200 and 250 groups were smaller and it was very noticeable that there were very few women. As the milestones got higher, the groups became smaller. There were only 15 in Paul’s group. But the milestones grew even higher with 300, 350, 400, 450 and 500 donations. All men. There were only 3 in each of the last two groups. After the ceremony, we enjoyed a lovely afternoon tea while we waited for Paul’s group to have their picture taken.
Seniors Citizen’s
Week
Paul and I had fun this Seniors Citizens Week. I’m still a fake SC but in February next year, when I turn 60, I’ll be a REAL one. We joined in on the Seniors Citizens Week launch in Federation Square and went on the walk. With Paul’s competitive spirit, we strode out in front and were first to the finish line – although a few other Senior Citizens tried to muscle in on the last stretch. On Tuesday, we saw two movies at the ACMI (Australian Centre of the Moving Image) in Federation Square. It’s a fascinating place to go by the way. We saw “The Page Turner” and “Love in the time of Cholera” -both excellent movies. We had a few hours to kill in between the shows so we had a walk along Birrarung Marr and went for a free ride on the tourist bus around Melbourne. Dad and I also had a couple of outings. We went, with Judy, to the talk on “Maintain Your Brain” by Professor Frederick Mendelsohn of the Howard Florey Institute (http://www.florey.edu.au/) in the BMW theatre at Federation Square. It was a very informative talk with a long question time. We had a lot of our current knowledge reinforced and learnt a few new things too. If you are interested in what Professor Mendelsohn had to say about maintaining good brain health, click here. I’ve tried to remember everything he talked about. On Thursday, Dad and I went to an informative talk at the Ombudsmans Office.
Remembering Wasyl
Paul’s father, Wasyl, passed away on 6th May 2006. If he had still been with us, he would have been 100 this birthday. His family came together at Maribyrnong Park on a beautiful day on 5th October 2008 to remember his birthday (6/10). See pics here.
Pauline’s news
Paul’s Mum, Pauline, is enjoying her life at the Ukrainian Ederly People’s Home. As well as regular visits from Paul and Lisa, and coming to family get togethers, she takes part in many activities at the home. These include outings on the home’s bus, art and craft sessions, cooking, bingo and religious occasions. Paul took some pictures the last time he went to visit, but also noticed Pauline featured in the annual report by being in some of the photos of residents taking part in activities. Click here for some of those pictures.
Happy birthday to Lisa,
Con, Sam and Cathy in September and Wade, Darcy and Joshua in October. We also
remember Wasyl Teres on 6th October when he would have been 100 years old! Click here for your
birthday card.
If your birthday
is in September or October and you are not on this list, email admin (at)
collinsplus.com and send in your birth date.
Paul’s Clean Jokes
Paul has sent more of his jokes for us to enjoy.
BBQ
We are about to enter the BBQ season. Therefore it is important to
refresh your memory on the etiquette of this sublime outdoor cooking activity.
Thanks Cathy for the timely reminder. Click here to
view the rules.
There are no ugly women
This photo below was taken at a competition
in June 2006. The competition was between 9 women for best makeover. They had every
possible beauty treatment available to them over a period of 12 hours before the contest. Look at the before and after photos. Conclusion - there are no ugly women only poor women....
(The woman 2nd from
the left won the contest.)
Congratulations this month to ….
ü Paul on donating blood to the Red Cross 250
times
ü Wendy and Gary on the arrival of a 4th grandchild
ü Alex for being in the winning team at the Rock Eisteddfod
ü Alex for her promotion at work
ü Tys and Kate for doing such a great job on their backyard entertaining
area
Passing on
this newsletter
If you want to send this newsletter to
an extended family member, this is how you can do it.
- Go to File in the Toolbar
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An email will come up with the link in it and you just have to put in the email
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