Dear Emma,
This is to wish you a very happy New Year in 2014 plus a belated happy Christmas. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and will have a very happy 2014!
I am over in New Zealand now visiting my parents, which is really great.I arrived on Christmas evening at about 6.15pm. I flew from Melbourne to Christchurch and had a couple of hour in the airport before a connecting flight to Wellington. It has been really nice to be back in New Zealand. I was at my brother's farm in Woodville for the last two days and that was great. Jules, Pip, Barney and I went for a walk along the Manawatu gorge, which was really lovely.
I hope you had a good Christmas, Em. I did post some things for you just before Christmas, so I hope they reach you (send to the old address I have for your Grandmother in Beijing). I have a photo of the presents but left the connector for my camera at home, so will have to insert this later!

Hope you have a lovely 2014 Emma and sending you my best wishes as always.
Love, Aaron xxx ooo

Dear Emma,
Hope you are well. I have some sad news about lovely Lulu, our dear cat. She passed away this evening. It happened very quickly. She seemed her normal self when I got home after work but at about 9.25pm, I heard some strange meows from the laundry and when I went to see her, she wasn't able to stand and couldn't breathe properly. She went unconscious and then passed away extremely quickly. I took her to the after hours Animal Emergency centre but it was too late for her. She was such a lovely and affectionate cat. I will miss her a lot. She did have a long life, from 8/5/97 until 19/8/13, so 16 years, 3 months and 5 days. I think we were lucky to know such a lovely animal.
I hope all is going well for you, Em. You are never far from my thoughts and sending you my very best wishes as always.
Take care and love from,
Aaron xxx ooo

Hi Emma,
Hope you are well. This is to wish you a very happy birthday for today!! It is hard to believe you are 18 years old now - that's fantastic . I have some presents for you but not all of them yet sorry. I'll try to send to you soon - promise!!!

Things are OK here. Lulu is OK though she has to have some medicine (Neomercazole) everyday now for a thyroid condition that she has. She is fine if she has the tablets but if not she can start losing some weight. It is very common in older cats apparently. Lulu is nearly 16 years old now, so not very young for a cat!

Grandma and Grandpa in New Zealand are fine too. Grandma (my Mum) was over in Melbourne for a visit in March this year. We went to Adelaide for a few days which was really nice. We stayed in the same cabins at Nunyara in the Adelaide Hills that we had stayed in when Grandma, you and me were in Adelaide about 11 years ago. We caught the Overland train between Melbourne and Adelaide. Trfain travel is very relaxing I think!

Hope you are well Emma and wishing you a very lovely and special 18th birthday! Take care and hope we can catch up soon!
Love from,
Aaron xxx ooo
(plus Lulu of course)

Hi Emma,
Hope you are well. Wishing you a very happy Christmas! I hope you have been having a good Christmas! I have sent you some presents (see photo below) but I only posted them off yesterday sorry, so they'll be a bit late (as usual, sorry!).

Today has been a quiet day for me, which is not a bad thing. I went to church in the morning and that was very nice. Rev John Smith retold a short story by Tolstoy during the sermon, which was very moving. You can read an online version of it at http://www.inspirationbit.com/a-bit-of-literature-papa-panov-special-christmas/ if you are interested!

Normally I would have spent Christmas with my old friend Alex but as I mentioned in an earlier post, he passed away in May this year. So I have been having a quiet day with Lulu, eating a nice Christmas lunch and reading my book. The book is “The Locked Room” by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. They are wonderful writers of Swedish crime fiction and it is a great book. Their books were written between the mid 1960's and 1970's and feature a melancholy detective called Martin Beck. I'd recommended the series!

Hope all is well with you Emma and that you have a happy time at Christmas and a very happy 2013 ahead! Take care and hope we can catch up soon :) !

Lots of love,
Aaron (and Lulu of course )
xxx ooo

Dear Emma,
Wishing you a very happy birthday for today! I hope you have a wonderful day! Seventeen is a great age, I hope you have a really good year ahead :). I have gotten you some presents that I hope you will like. See photo below. The book by Lian Hearn, “Across the nightingale floor” is one a read myself just recently and I found it an absolutely gripping story. I stayed up half the night to finish it, so hope you like it too!

I'm sorry to say that I haven't posted these yet but I'll do that soon!

Things are OK here. Lulu is fine and Grandma (my Mum) from NZ visited me last month. I also had a short visit at the same time from your great Aunty Jan from Brisbane and from your cousin (my niece) Jessica from NZ. It was really lovely to have them to visit. Jan and Jessica could only stay a few days and we all had a good look around Melbourne city, including getting some nice vegan food at Lentil as anything at Footscray & the Veggie Hut in Box Hill and having a tram ride from Footscray back to the city and also from Box Hill to the city. It was really nice.

I have to go to church now but I'll write more later today. In the meantime, very best wishes for your bithday and have a lovely day!!
Lots of love,
Aaron :)
xxxooo