End of year round up - possibly

It's 23:00 on Christmas Eve 2009. I've done my wrapping and my gifts for The Little Worker are anonymously piled under the tree. There'll be the usual complaints tomorrow morning about unlabelled presents. I never have labelled my presents for The Little Worker - I figure they're all intelligent enough to work it out.
The last few weeks of the year have been more hectic than normal, including a late trip in mid December to the jewel of south Sydney, Kogarah on a routine six-monthly visit to see The Prof [ David Morris]. We were relaxed about the visit as the latest CT scan had been clear - always a relief despite the fact that after four years of clear scan I have become blasé. Still that's human I suppose. The really good news about this visit was David's statement that he thought it "..unlikely that the cancer would recur" and that I would not have to come back to Kogarah until next November. We were initially stunned to say the least - I always thought that five years was the magical period. However given The Prof's been right so far I'm chuffed to take this news.
We celebrated that evening... Firstly we went into the city to look around, gravitated to the Queen Victoria Building in George Street. Took some photos of a spectacular Christmas tree - sponsored by Swarowski it reached from the ground to the top floor. I bought some Secret Santa presents at the Hobbyco shop then we had a break with a pot of tea [Chai for me, Arctic Fire for the Little Worker] at the Yama Japanese restaurant on level 2 of the QVB.
After that we needed dinner but I still wanted to do the thing I always like to do when in Sydney - a trip on a harbour ferry. So we used the excellent trains to get to Circular Quay. Not much thought needed about where to go - Manly! Just being on the Manly ferry is a pleasure for me and makes any trip to Sydney more than worthwhile. So arrived after a rolling trip across the harbour which I liked. Some recent [to me at least] developments at Manly wharf including new restaurants. We quickly settled on Hugo's based on an inspection of the menu. 'Twas a good choice - an excellent meal that we both really enjoyed. Nice atmosphere - the place was buzzing and the place is on the Wharf thus a nice setting as well.