As we prepare for a much-anticipated holiday and the year starts it slow meander towards Christmas, I thought I would write and let you know a little about our year just gone by ...

Wayne's sister Glynis, her husband Richard and their beautiful girls Kelly and Geena visited us in December/January from SA. Richard's sister Carol lives right around the corner from us and so the two families combined for several weeks of fairly raucous reunion. It was absolutely wonderful.

Sebastian turned one in January, a momentous event that didn't mean much in his little world, but meant everything in ours. We had a "Wayne and Andrea survived a year" party with a few friends and Sebastian got delightfully spoiled. As I recall, the party was soon followed by a horrendous bout of vomiting and fever for Sebastian (which doesn't say much for my catering!) and I spent the night of his birthday sleeping on the floor of his room for fear of a relapse.

As if this was a sign of things to come, Sebastian was ill for quite a lot of the first part of the year. He'd been plagued by ear infections since he was about twelve weeks old, and these showed no signs of abating. After yet another four-day stint of forty-degree temperatures and another tearful visit to the ENT, Wayne and I decided to go ahead and have the recommended grommets operation for Sebastian. So at the grand old age of sixteen months he underwent his first surgery, poor little thing. But with hindsight, this was absolutely the right thing to do. The unending see-saw of ear infections ceased almost overnight and a happy, boisterous, healthy child emerged! He has not had an ear infection since then and has been so happy and healthy, much to our delight. I think in part this is because we have taken all dairy out of his diet, and partly because the grommets are still there draining any potential infection before they take hold.

Sebastian has been in day care all year, (for two days a week) and the constant exposure to bugs and creep-crawlies was part of the initial problem with constant ear infections. But since the op and the change in diet he has resisted every other bug that has done the rounds, including recent mini-epidemics of conjunctivitis and whooping cough.

In April my parents came out to Australia to visit us. This was doubly special because it was the first time my dad had seen Sebastian, and only the second time for my mum. They spent a blissful month with us, including what must have been the highlight of our year, a trip to Hamilton Island in the beautiful Whitsundays. We spent five postcard perfect days lounging on the tropical beaches, paddling through the many resort pools, learning to scuba dive (!!!) or just draping ourselves artfully across deck of our beautiful villa. I wrote an e-mail newsletter about it. If for some reason you didn’t receive it, just let me know and I'll send you a copy.

In May we celebrated Wayne's fortieth birthday. After much insistance from Wayne it was a very low-key affair, just dinner with a few friends at our favourite thai restaurant in Gordon. Wayne was showered with gift vouchers to one of our favourite stores which he used to stock up on beautiful clothes for the upcoming winter.

At the beginning of the year I set up a little PR and marketing firm called AMPR (Andrea Moller Public Relations) which I am delighted to say has been a huge success. I have had around nine clients at various stages of the year, and at times been so busy that I've barely had time to blink. This is a real achievement at a time when I'm told around sixty percent of start-ups never make it through the first year. If anything, I've been a little too busy for my liking at this has put a bit of strain on my family and on the rest of my life, especially right after Wayne came out of hospital (more about that later) and I wasn't around as much as I should have been. But with perfect hindsight I will have more knowledge as I prepare for next year, more discipline in saying no to work and more courage in asking for more time, resources and money from my clients.

After he turned forty, Wayne took himself off to the doctor for a general check-up in the interests of good citizenship. As you no doubt know, a simple blood test taken during this visit led to a series of tests that revealed that Wayne had prostate cancer. This little piece of news arrived on 28 July and spiralled us out of general social circulation and into an awful few months of anxiety, major surgery and a slow but steady recovery. Wayne has remained incredibly brave and positive throughout the ordeal, but I must say I probably haven't coped quite so well. Nevertheless, we are thrilled to be able to say that it all seems to be behind us now. As a result of some brilliant surgery and around a week in hospital and a few weeks' recovery, all the cancer has been removed from Wayne's body and the markers in his blood are down to 0.02 which is a sure sign that he is in full remission. Whats more, he has completely side-stepped all the notorious side effects associated with the operation. It is an amazing feeling to be going into the Christmas period and to be facing a new year knowing that this is all behind us know. I dread to know what it must be like for families who are carrying the awful burden of illness with them into another year. For us at least, we have been given an amazing new chance to face another chapter of our lives without encumbrance.

As if one major upheaval wasn't enough, Wayne returned to work after a month's leave to find that his company had restructured and his job effectively no longer existed. After some negotiation, the parties decided on a settlement agreement and Wayne has left the firm. At this stage we are not sure what the new year holds for him in terms of employment, but we have such a new perspective on things that neither of us is particularly worried. By some strange fluke the phone has been ringing constantly with job opportunities and various interesting prospects, so we are lucky in that something is bound to work out for us. In the meantime, Wayne is taking his time as he mulls through the various options, which are all being assessed in the light of what we have been through this year and what is now more important to us than ever before; quality time as a family, financial stability and life experiences.

Another by-product of the radical prostatectomy (the surgery to remove Wayne's prostate) is that we are unable to conceive children naturally. As I write we have just begun the process of trying to conceive through IVF, or in our case a procedure called IUI or Intra Uterine Insemination. Its hideously invasive but at the same time totally miraculous what can be done with today's technology, and I am very optimistic that we will be able to have a baby in the next year or so. It is amazing and strange that as I write my future child is suspended in a freezer, still in sperm form of course, but nevertheless in existence. I hope with all my heart that we can defrost him or her in the very near future!

But before the new year, the new baby and the all-important work decision, we are thrilled to be flying to South Africa for a blissful six-week break. We will be spending Christmas with our families for the first time in four years, and we will be there for Sebastian's second birthday too. We have a few days planned in a game reserve, four or five days in Cape Town (where both our sisters live), a short break in Port Elizabeth to see my grandmother and four heavenly weeks in Durban with nothing to do but eat Christmas leftovers and gaze at our navels.

Which brings me to the conclusion of an uncharacteristically short e-mail, to say a heartfelt hello and to pass on our very best wishes for a peaceful and happy Christmas, and the very best of everything for 2006.

With lots of love,

Andrea, Wayne and Sebastian

xx