From Axbridge to Australia the HoJo way

The Deccies are down

2012-01-27T22:04:00.000+08:00

The Deccies are down and we are looking forward to a bright, exciting and prosperous New Year.

Oh no we’re not, admitedly the deccies are down, but we are still dossing around waiting for this business purchase to proceed before we can put on our happy hats and start to look forward to the bright, exciting, prosperous bit.

This is all dragging a bit and there are only so many times you want to sit down in a cafe or bar with wifi to look up loads of websites that just don’t seem to change their content as often as one would like.

We are still trying to get out every day for a bracing walk, although there has been a lot of rain around over the last few weeks, but there is generally a break in the rain at some point during the day where we can get out.

The weather in Cornwall has been particularly warm so far this winter, with temps hitting 12c most days and quite often coming close to the same temp overnight, so Ian is still wearing his shorts, while Carolyn, who used to put on a sweater in Oz if it got below 22c, isn’t.

Tonight the temp is supposed to go down to almost freezing and with the strong winds that we are currently experiencing it should test Ians resolve.

Ian has also been doing a bit of work in St Tudy Community Shop, just a couple of hours a week, but it gives him the chance to chat up all the old ladies which enhances their lives no end, but it will all have to end next week if all goes well.

Motivation

2012-01-05T22:14:00.001+08:00

So many things almost to do, we are almost buying a business, we are almost moving home, again, we so often say never again... but this next one is small, tiny small, poor Fraser doesn't enjoy sharing a room but the boys rooms will run one into another and the first is barely more than a corridor. They would like hammocks to save space...tempting. Kristian may yet end up sleeping in a wardrobe. It is hard to keep motivated when you have nothing to do. I have been asked why we didn't just get jobs! Um... apart from the fact that we had hoped it wouldn't take 3 months to buy the business, they aren't growing on trees and then the expense of a second car... the list goes on. So we wait, we plan, we try to come up with ideas all the time to convince ourselves that we aren't just wasting our lives. Soon, this will all be past, we will be back to working too hard, not being able to take a holiday and wondering where the time went. If we were on holiday we could kick back and relax but under all this lack of activity our brains are whirring, never really relaxing, second guessing every phone call, wondering when.....but things are moving slowly on rather than not. Still, at least I am blogging again. All it took was finding an internet connection better than the luke-warm hot spot where we are staying so I could download ios5, so I could download pages, hurrah an hour and a half and 2 cups of coffee later I can finally type again. Having a keyboard rather than a pop up which hides 1/3 of the screen also helps.

A christmas tale

2012-01-04T19:29:00.001+08:00

Just before Christmas the intrepid Mr and Mrs Hojo ventured into 'town' to peruse potential gifts. Upon declining to take part in the annual spendfest and use their imagination they repaired to a local Church they had seen advertising a Christmas Tree Festival. St Petroc Church in Bodmin had a huge display of trees, it took ages to wander round and admire all the trees from the unexciting, covered in business cards, to the livelier ones provided by local play schools it was beautiful. The homemade cake helped too.Small postable gifts were mostly purchased in the surprisingly large choice of independent stores in Wadebridge and hopefully all arrived on time, apart from a small one sent to Australia which I hope gets there soon and another parcel which was never meant to be for Christmas, thankfully, as I haven't sent it yet. Tut. Christmas in a small, 3 bed holiday chalet was interesting, and yet between the 7 of us we managed not to fall out. The tiny oven coped, mostly because we bought a boned and rolled turkey to save space. Yum. We fed well, didn't overindulge, and did not have to eat turkey leftovers other than cold on boxing day which is the law.We do still have chocolate biscuits left, only because we hid some.Again due to not having earned any money since March 2011 and also lack of space we had to be clever on the gift side of things, suits for Karate and Aikido went down well, and some money to pay for their first gradings when due was lovely, I have to congratulate my lovely Aunt on spookily knowing Missy and I would love Radley gifts, and the boys had a fab time building gadgets. When it came to finding a screwdriver we had to be clever, on the back of a box of crackers we found a picture of a small set of screwdrivers, so we pulled crackers until we found some, in the last cracker. We played card games, marbles, a funny building game with hedgehogs and scrabble of course (not with my Dad though, I wanted to win!) Other small bits and bobs were passed around and even the ducks got extra bread, the squirrels got the left over nuts (they weren't so nice) Missy even opened the shells for them!We have walked a lot, been rained on, sampled Pasties, and even managed to pop out on New Years Eve.Thanks 2011, we are ready to start work so if the business purchase could happen soon I'd be very grateful,thanks for readingxc

Shop merrily

2011-12-21T21:22:00.001+08:00

I have been trying to write a review of a fab set of Hama beads from the lovely beadmerrily for weeks, sadly blogging and iPad are not good friends.So I give up ungracefully. go to google and look for playmerrily or beadmerrily buy lots of gifts and get them delivered by nice people in a family firm. They arrived the next day for me, almost unheard of. Like their page on Facebook, or add them on twitter to get notifications of special offers.And next time I offer to do a review, smile sweetly and say 'I don't think so'Xc

Abandoned but not really

2011-11-23T17:28:00.001+08:00

We are still here, still working away at settling down, kids enjoying school, mostly the social side in Missys case but getting good results too.We have lots to say but are waiting until we actually buy before we say anything, just in case ;o) Back with more photos soon...

Pictures of Cornwall.... finally

2011-10-11T02:17:00.007+08:00

St Ives
Seal posing in St Ives Harbour
Truro Cathedral
Inside Truro Cathedral
More Truro Cathedral
Again...
King Arthurs Castle at Tintagel on a very misty day
More King Arthur

Outside Doc Martins house/surgery in Port Isaac/Portwenn

Harbour at Portwenn
The school
Small streets in Boscastle
Not quite getting wet in the River Valency in Boscastle

Cornwall again

2011-09-18T05:02:00.002+08:00

Here we are back in Cornwall, staying in Newquay enjoying a warm pint of real ale. Nuff said. Except we owe you photos and we will when we get a decent Internet connection :o) the weather isn't as good as Devon but hopefully it will improve.....

Cornwall

2011-09-10T03:28:00.002+08:00

We have been in Cornwall for a week now and have been staying in a caravan near Bude and have not yet booked for next week in Devon. Hopefully there are some last minute breaks available.

We have looked at many businesses in Bude, Launceston, Falmouth, Mevagissey, Looe, Truro, St Austell, Padstow, Newquay, Polperro, Bodmin, and many more. We have driven constantly and are shattered. There are however a couple of possibilities and we still have next wek in Devon, assuming we find somewhere to stay.

I will upload some pictures soon but Internet use is almost strictly work time.

In case you are interested the weather is warm but rainy.

Moving on

2011-08-16T08:44:00.003+08:00

A little update for you.

We have had the final inspection on the house, had a leaving party for the kids and around 20 friends at the local pool, we had a little get together at Occys Brewery with our Scouting friends including live music from our very own DJ Macca and his band Soul Survivors which was lovely. Had a great time catching up with people we usually only see for a short time each week.

We had 2 garage sales, on 2 Saturdays, and sold pretty much everything. Just a gas fire and a fridge and freezer and some kids toys left. Most will go to charity shops, the fridge and freezer we will ship if we don't sell them this week and the fire.... I need someone to buy a gas fire. It won't work in England!

Ians Car has gone :o( bye bye A GUNNER he was a nice car. Mine is sold but the buyer is letting us keep it till we are in Perth and ready to leave which is pretty cool, thanks Dan!

Tonight is the last scouts, last night Marisa said goodbye to her Drama Llamas, next weekend we are on our own (yippee) Marisa is in Perth doing YWAM, helping the homeless for her last few days of school and the boys have a final Scout camp. We will be left surrounded by boxes and possessions waiting to be backed by the movers next Monday and then we are off on Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday. Depending on when the camel delivers our $$ to the bank!

We have organised a few drinks with friends which should be fun, we have already been out to dinner, again, with 'our' staff we miss them, we have been out to lunch with lovely friends we met as customers in the cafe a long, long time ago :o) a handful of catchups to go and we are done.

I think we need to rename the blog, I'm pretty sure 'There and back again' has already been taken.

SOLD

2011-08-02T14:07:00.002+08:00

Mostly for Grandad

2011-07-28T10:15:00.003+08:00

Fraser made this, we think it is very cool!

Jetty at night

2011-07-28T09:24:00.002+08:00

The Router is dead, long live the Router

2011-07-27T18:30:00.004+08:00

Our dodgy netgear router has been intermittent at best for months now but we clung to the hope it would last until we left. Nope, not to be, the poor baby died so after we had installed a new Belkin router we let Kristian loose with a screwdriver and... he was happy with the result for oh, at least half a day. Happy Holidays! I remember pointing out that the evidence needed to be in the bin by Sunday, who wants to bet it is hidden in his room?

Hiking the Bibbulmun Track

2011-07-22T11:49:00.003+08:00

The Scouts needed another hike for badge earning and whatnot and I seemed to be next in line for 'volunteering' so I dutifully borrowed a proper pack and staggered up hill and down with 15kilos on my back! Fraser carried 1/4 of his bodyweight in his pack including a tent and a stove, Kristians pack we kept lighter because he isn't as long legged and muscly as Fraser. Marisa decided to get an abcess in her mouth requiring multiple types of drugs and couldn't go. Again. Shame, she loves this outdoorsy stuff.

We drove to the Lowden Grimwade Road, outside Donnybrook and hiked from 12 ish, we expected it to take until 4pm however a cheerful member of the team liked wandering from side to side finding shiny things and funky fungi so we got to the Noggerup Campsite just in time to introduce ourselves to the 5 people already at the shelter for the night, and then it got dark.

This section of the track has a few long sharp rises, minor undulations in Ians book, flipping steep hills in mine. It was hard work but beautiful scenery.

We heated many pots of water for essential cups of tea for the adults, hot chocolate for the children and pasta/noodle dishes for dinner. The rest of the 'guests' were in bed by 7pm so we let the boys have a quick game of cards and they went to bed by 7.30, earliest bed time on record for a Scout trip I suspect.

There were 7 in our group and not enough room in the shelter so 4 of the kids pitched the tents and slept in those, wise choice, it was freezing in the shelter. The temperature rapidly dropped below 0 degrees and even in 3 layers including thermals I was still shivering in my sleeping bag. I never thought I would yearn for a tent. I believe the practice of sleeping on a wooden shelf in the open with wolves and feral cats for company a little unusual. The long drop loo however was spotlessly clean no doubt due to the lovely people who were sharing it with us.

In the morning it soon warmed back up to 0 and by the time we had tried to encourage people to clear up, wash up and take down tents it was a balmy 4 degrees and I took off my 4th layer (which was required in order for me to be able to get out of bed).
We set off late again and marched off towards the Mumballup Tavern where Ian had arranged to pick us up with hot coffee from Tiffanys Cafe in Donnybrook.

We soon split into 2 groups again, making use of the 'cooee system' to stay in touch. It is quite accurate in working out how far apart the groups are.

We walked at a steady pace until the route changed and we had to walk on a fairly stony road which is a little harsh at the tail end of a hike when your feet are a little fed up. The very last stretch is on a disused railway line, it took about 20 mins and it was lovely to be met by Ian and Missy with COFFEE!

A quick chat at the end, madarins of a friends tree (yum) and a photo by the Bibbulmun Track sign and we were done.

Except.

Someone decided we had to go to Gnomesville. Which is weird, unless you are a big fan of gnomes in which case it is probably wonderful.

At this point my feet hurt after having had a little rest in the car the last thing I needed was another walk but we went, we looked, and gladly went home for a shower and a snooze.

We set off on Saturday, finished on Sunday afternoon and I think I stopped hobbling by Thursday. I had old tired trainers on and managed to get one little blister which disappeared after a good dousing with cream and no trainers.

Not many pics sadly as they all have Scouts that aren't mine in them apart from a strange one of my leg that Kristian took which I shan't publish.

By the map we hiked around 20 k with 5 children from age 10, the map is out of date and we now can't hike through a farmers field which added about 3k I think. We did this in around 7 hours not including rest stops.

Paella

2011-07-14T21:22:00.003+08:00

It is lovely that Mr Hojo spends so much time cooking.

It is not so lovely that I spend an almost equal amount of time cleaning up after him. Cleaning tomato based sauce off the tile, stove top and kitchen counter is not my idea of fun!

It had a little too much paprika in the recipe but fortunately we had a tub of greek yoghurt in the fridge which went with it beautifully. Tomorrow we add seafood and have it all over again :o)

Musicians and Artists

2011-07-14T19:16:00.005+08:00

The blue one threw itself at us at a garage sale and refused to be left behind. Stand included :o) Gotta love a musical bargain. The lessons are going well too.

Also, Missy made this rather fine Pinball Machine at school.

Proof of the pudding, or pie in this case

2011-07-12T17:27:00.003+08:00

The finished products. My favourite was the small pie with pickle in it. Reminds me of the mini pork pies from Tesco mmmmmmmm :o)

Homemade Pork Pies

2011-07-12T17:16:00.003+08:00

It was quite hard to find a butcher to sell us some pig trotters, it would appear the piggies are footless and fancy free out here. This was yummy, a bit top heavy on the sage side of thigs but delicious and far superior to the shop sold pork pies in this hemisphere. Thanks to Hugh for the recipe.

Busselton Beach in winter

2011-07-12T16:49:00.002+08:00

We may be suffering from a surfeit of seaweed.

I won

2011-06-17T15:58:00.002+08:00

ha hahaha hahahaha! clever little me :o)

One and a half litres of yummyness. Happy days.

If Mr Hojo is very lucky I may even share with him!

And the rain came down

2011-06-17T14:52:00.001+08:00

and the sea rose up and deposited rubbish all over the path, ripped up the footpath and washed an enormous park bench a few feet out to sea....oops, about those sea defences folks?

Because everyone needs blue custard

2011-06-17T14:43:00.002+08:00

no? just us then....

Happy Birthday

2011-06-15T08:17:00.002+08:00

Happy Birthday Mr Hojo

xx

Sad day

2011-06-02T17:16:00.005+08:00

Today three years ago my Mum died, I can't believe it is 3 years already. I felt like a fraud being so miserable when in the UK it hadn't happened yet, even though it was 3 years ago....weird huh?

To stop a miserable day being simply dismal Mr Hojo drove us out to the Cape Naturaliste Lighhouse where we had a cup of coffee (only sold in takeaway cups boo) and went for a walk around the coastline. Simply gorgeous and lovely to see how much the area has regrown after the huge bushfire that almost wiped out the lighthouse. We stuck to a level walk as we were a little sore after our trek yesterday, for the locals we walked from Broadwater to Siesta Park and back again, for non locals a flippin long way! 10k I guess as we went the long way both times.
The less flat path takes you past the whale lookout where we have walked as a family a fair amount.

Todays pictures are wildly different to April 2009 after the burn.

We wandered around Dunsborough for a while and went home as someone wanted to buy the Kayak (yay). We had many hours of fun on that little kayak but we have to clear out so off it went to it's new home.

Where were we?

2011-05-30T22:00:00.004+08:00

The kids all went to Rottnest Island to do some community service with the scouts which left us on our own and as they left on Friday lunch time.....so did we.

We drove up to Fremantle and stayed at the Esplanade Hotel. Oh it was lovely. Shame it wasn't warm enough to use the pool.

We wandered around Fremantle, looked through the markets, drank a beer, ate tapas at the gypsy tapas place which despite the reviews was fast, well cooked and very, very cheap, we got a little chilly, had a fairly awful coffee in town and went back to the hotel for an early night.

Saturday morning we were up early and off to Kings Park for a stroll, to take some pictures and have breakfast. Very cheap considering where it is.

After that we went to Harbour Town and barely managed to spend $50 on a pair of shoes and a pair of jeans..... Crazy.

Lunch, I think we skipped, but we did have coffee at Garden City where we failed to buy anything at all.

After all this shopping we were a little worn out so we headed back to the hotel for a rest before going out for a stroll. We wandered around the waters edge, checked out Little Creatures but as usual we struggle to find a weak beer and went looking for somewhere to have dinner. In the end we headed back into Freo and booked a table for later on at Sandrino. Probably the only place where we felt we had spent any money and the food was so worth it. We picked up a couple of gifts for the kids and toddled home.

Sunday morning, our last day of freedom, so we checked out and left our luggage with the porter and went to the E-shed Markets but didn't see anything we fancied so we ended up back in Freo for a lovely croissant each. Same brand of coffee, far more drinkable. Another wander around the market to pick up a pair of red and white stripey over the knee socks for Missy ($6) well why not? Fraser got books from the second hand bookstore. Kristian got some clever flicker cards as he is into animation at the mo.

We walked back, collected out bags and headed to Mandurah along the Old Coast Road.

Coffee at Gloria Jeans, again cheap, a wander along the foreshore and lunch at Ninos for good old Fish and Chips. A swift drive home to beat the rain and we were unpacked before the kids got back to Busso. They were tired but happy and so were we.

That was our first break-away since we came out here nearly 3 1/2 years ago!

OK blogger, what did you do with the photos? I'll try and add some tomorrow.

2011-05-08T21:28:00.002+08:00

It is a funny world. International Mothers day out here. Very nice, breakfast in bed, coffee for us adults) gelato (for the kids) fresh bread, EVOO and Dukka for lunch, walk in the afternoon and a lovely BBQ'd lamb for dinner.
Perfect.
Almost.
But you're not there.

Love you, Miss you Mum xx

I love my blog

2011-04-10T22:16:00.002+08:00

sadly there are people who aren't loving and caring. They leave comments that I don't let my readers see. You know why? because I love every person I 'know' that reads my blog. Some of them I have never met, but they give me something special that melts my heart. If I met them IRL I would hug them like my life depended on it. Some things are more precious that I can say and I thank you for it. All of you :o)

xc

Nostalgia.. The Hojos in America

2011-04-07T14:22:00.002+08:00

So, about Aprils Fools Day

2011-04-06T12:43:00.002+08:00

There was one more pupil in school on Friday Morning, yes, I borrowed a dress, put on my school shoes and went to class.

The look on some of the teachers faces just about made my week!
The head of high school managed to make a show of me in assembly, good sport that he is :o)
Points for originality I think.

More famous than before

2011-04-01T17:00:00.002+08:00

Here we are again, in the other local paper!

I have no idea why the pictures have been turned on their side and as before, tilt head for maximum viewing experience!

Fame at last

2011-03-31T08:56:00.003+08:00

I popped into the cafe yesterday to see Ian and was congratulated on the lovely picture in the paper by the first 3 people I saw.. so for your viewing pleasure here it is........

Uproar in the House

2011-03-29T11:06:00.003+08:00

As we very kindly paid for an advert in the programme, we got 2 free tickets to the show. Unfortunately we had already paid for tickets so we happily gave two to a couple of friends of ours who were celebrating their 50th wedding aniversary, their tickets are for the last night on April 1st!

We went to the preview night which was fab, funny and started before kick off with free pink champagne and a rather bizarre auction in which I am fairly sure they sold off the jetty for a handfull of 20 cent coins.

It was a very funny evening, our picture was taken a few times for the local paper, not sure if we will make it in, we will have to wait until the paper comes out.

Thoroughly recommend going to see the show!

Art Allsorts, Busselton

2011-03-28T18:06:00.002+08:00

On Friday 18th we were happy to go to the opening of an envelope, um, nope an art exhibition in Busselton.

There were nibbles and wine and a string trio playing, all lovely, and free or lovely and free, depending on your point of view.

The art was mostly nice, mostly far too expensive for us, the wine was very drinkable, the atmosphere was fun rather than snooty. We loved a picture and asked all about its story, found that there wasn't one and didn't love it quite so much.

A pleasant change for us, must do again. Thanks for the invite, opening night rocks.

Turn head to one side for a more interactive viewing experience.

Busso sunset

2011-03-28T14:51:00.003+08:00

This was supposed to show a lovely sunset, but the pictures are backwards. So scroll up for the full effect :o)

Fishing Trip with Scouts

2011-03-24T17:16:00.002+08:00

Tuesday night is Scout night and off went the intrepid 3 to the Jetty.

Armed with absolute inexperience, Marisa caught one fish. I think only 3 were caught between around 15 scouts. It was a beautiful night and Ian and I enjoyed a coffee under the stars before he cycled home and I collected smelly offspring. We left the dead fish for someone else to take home!

A funny thing happened

2011-03-14T21:09:00.003+08:00

Sunday was lovely, hot but not oppressive, sunny but not fierce, perfect for a trip to the beach.

On the way to Gnarabup we rang a friend of Missy and invited her to join us, she lives in Margaret River and was on the way. A short detour and a promise to be careful on the beach and we were off.

The beach was perfect, we swam, the kids dived and found a huge supply of shells we used the boogie boards for over an hour and they still wanted more.

Mr Hojo and I were hanging for a coffee so we got the troops to move over to the sheltered beach for a swim where we could supervise them from the safety of a table, 2 chairs and some warm caffeinated beverages.

Thud, THUD, THUD oh my........ a trailer had unhitched itself and the guy who was hoping to collect some seaweed for his garden was in danger of squashing 4 children, one of whom didn't belong to us!

We watched in slow motion as the trailer bumped its way down the slope towards the children who sensibly stepped out the way and calmly helped him get the trailer back on the slipway! Way cool.

Kids all fine and back in the water we stayed on for a while until we felt we needed to go get the kids home and ready for school the next day.

We took friend home and stayed for a chat witht the parents, at no time did either of us think to mention we nearly got her squashed...I suspect they will trust us again.....?

ABC Grandstand

2011-03-02T20:13:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday afternoon when we came home from work, Ian switched the radio on in the bedroom while he was getting changed and after listening to a load of drivel about Aussie rules football (aerial ping pong we call it), the commentator, reporter, DJ, presenter, whatever you want to call him, announced to the world that he had made a mistake.
Now ABC over here is the equivalent of BBC back in the UK, so should be a professional outfit, in reality they are abysmal and are always getting things wrong and this was a blinder.
It would appear that before we got home from work, the presentery sort of person had given out the result of a Rugby League Match, not just any Rugby League Match, but the biggest match of the day, Waratahs vs someone else, now we know this was a big match because they had been talking about it all week on the radio.
Picture it, this apology for making a mistake took place at approx 4pm WA time and the game didn’t start until 4.30pm WA time, what was the mistake you might ask, the mistake was that the presentery dude had given out the final result of a game that still hadn’t kicked off and the reason for it was that, it would appear that ABC get their sports news from watching Foxtel (Sky), Foxtel had been showing the highlights of the previous years corresponding match as part of their big game build up and this plonker thought that they were showing the highlights of this years game so gave out the result, you would have thought that the ABC could afford to send a reporter to such a big game.
Anyway, Ian laughed his socks off when he heard this guy explaining how he had made the mistake, which was just as well otherwise they would have got wet when he got in the shower.

More picture, still not much typing

2011-02-14T18:19:00.002+08:00

Fairly bored looking Scouts at a recent Scout Medallion Presentation.

Yeah, we go to Breweries to drink soft drinks.

Busselton Jetty Re-opens

2011-02-14T16:09:00.002+08:00

Kristian finishes the Jetty swim!

A beautiful big bow for the Jetty.

More people than Busselton sees most days.

It is about time

2011-02-12T07:44:00.004+08:00

Walking on water after the 'cyclone'

We prepared like sensible people, we hid everything in the shed, put the plants away, put the garden furniture in the lounge because we ran out of room in the shed and yes, the drum kit ended up in the rabbit run! and the cyclone didnt come to busso for which we are thankful, but really, the bruises from moving all the stuff!

Next evening we decided to go to the Jetty and have a look at the wild and wooly weather, it rained.

The kids walked along the small jetty and I hid and took photos.

Sunset at the Jetty Fiesta

A busy day at the cafe and a big fiesta in busso to celevrate the jetty finally being open again. Missy was in a drama presentation in front of a croud of around 10,000 people!

Littlest Dude

Stop the car Mum, I want to take a picture of the clouds.

Marisa in the news again.

Happy New Year

2011-01-13T07:43:00.004+08:00

I don't make resolutions at the start of a year, New Year has always been just another day to us, previously a very busy stressful workday with no room for celebration so we have no tradition for partying.

This year we thought it would be nice to go out early ish and head home way before midnight. Um, yeah...

Amusingly the power went out just before we planned on leaving and as we had a drink each we decided to watch the mayhem with interest.
The party in the function room went wild they couldn't be served, some silliness about not being able to wash glasses :o) we sipped away happy in the knowledge that the kids were ok and weren't worried about no lights, when I rang a second time to check up, Fraser answered the phone with a sweet WHAT? like I was disturbing him!

We chatted with another couple at the bar, got to be the second time that has happened in 3 years, Aussie bars are so dissapointingly unfriendly like that, no local bars at all, just drop ins for people who happen to not be at a bbq that night.
So we chat for a while and eventually the light go on and we manage to be first in the queue to get served, and the beer runs out. Forever. Again.

The last owners did this, they ditch the weak beer and claim that it's ok because you can buy a bottle for twice the price, um..no thanks.

The weakest beer is now around 4.1 which just isn't a session beer for us, so no more evenings popping to the pub.

The walk home was pleasant enough as we had spent most of the evening either not getting served quickly or just not getting served at all and the first people we saw on the way back were playing a friendly game of cricket in the street, in the dark, in the early hours of the morning, but not outside my house so thats ok!

Happy New Year

I leave you with amusing (to us) pics from the Busso Trotts on Boxing Day with friends.

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And a suprise gift from the Lovely P :oD

Acting Up

2010-12-29T13:35:00.002+08:00

Shameless plug

We get a few hits from people googling Acting Up, presumably looking for acting classes in the Busselton/Margaret River area.

You need to go here
or email Terry on terry@actingup.com.au
or phone him on 0407 197 037

kids drama classes, stage make up courses, acting for adults, puppetry, the list is long and varied.

You're welcome :o)

A Merry Aussie Christmas

2010-12-24T10:17:00.005+08:00

This one smiles to order.

This one doesn't

He does this, scary!!!

This one doesn't either

Until you beg

So now you can see how much they have changed since last time you saw them, some people a couple of days, some 3 years, some never :o)

It is in the high thirties here, ridiculously hot! I know, many if you are struggling with burst pipes and frozen chicken poo, but yes, we are too hot already.

The bad weather in the UK has affected the post badly, I shall look forward to reading Christmas cards in the New Year, I hope you do too, those of you in the UK who usually get cards from us, they are on their way. If I am in contact with you mainly on line then MERRY CHRISTMAS and a SAFE and HAPPY NEW YEAR.

The school year ended with prize giving for the senior school, both Missy and Fraser were up on stage collecting awards which is always lovely :o) shame they weren't there long wnough to get decent photos. Kristian was on stage in the Christmas production which was sweet and funny, particularly a friend of his playing the part of their teacher, hysterical. Not a big production like we were used to at the English schools but amusing enough.

We have had a quiet start to the holidays at home, Marisa mainly sleeps or is at the Theatre for the Panto, exhausting but such fun, she loves it and we can't wait to see it, must hurry up and buy tickets..... just rushed off to raid Missys bag, we get one free ticket per family, just as well as we will probably go twice as she is a dwarf one night and a maid and in the chorus the next night and we would like to see her do both.

I took the kids to see Dawn Treader and loved it, I sat on my own in absolute peace and the kids met up with friends and probably muttered all through it, but I care not. Ian wasn't bothered about going so we left him at work, we have also seen HP7 and enjoyed that, but really if we hadn't read the book we would have been lost (sorry Ian, you were lost)

Getting ready for Christmas out here is a quiet effort. We have family coming on Christmas morning which will be lovely, we have also broken with tradition and invited friends for dinner and a couple more in the evening for drinks. Almost sociable we are!

Christmas eve service tonight, it isn't like church in the UK but it will be joyful and we will know lots of people there so will be a lovely start to the 4 day break.
Early start for the children on Christmas morning, a few presents and off to Meelup beach for a swim until we can bear the flies no more and home for turkey and salads at around 5pm. The garden is looking lovely but we will only eat out there if the flies aren't too bad otherwise we will eat indoors and go out later when it cools a little.

We tried using our old woodburning stove in the patio, it heated it beautifully but was too smokey so we shall have to hope everyone is tough enough because we will stay out all night (well till 10pm at least)

We had hoped to fit in a dog walk on the local beach, a short 2 min stroll away, but I think we have over booked ourselves, unless we go early in the morning before our guests arrive.

This noisy little frog make a big mistake venturing into the dog yard, pinned in a corner by two ridiculously large dogs it squeeled like a pig and scared them off, only to be growled at by the cat, locked in of course for the night, boy was he noisy. I hope he found somewhere more sensible to stay.

A safe and Happy Christmas to you all

xxxxx The Hojos

What have we been doing?

2010-12-09T18:11:00.002+08:00

Frivolous

2010-11-17T16:32:00.003+08:00

Practical? No
Comfortable? No
Look good? Yes

Done deal :o)

and only $20 in the sale last February

Can I walk in them.....we shall see, but not far I suspect.

The weekend

2010-11-08T07:26:00.004+08:00

A busy weekend but mostly fun. Work as usual on Saturday morning, then home, fortunately I had bullied the kids into packing their bags before work so after a quick rest I dropped them ALL off in Busselton so they could go away, ALL of them, to Bunbury with Scouts.

Bowling followed by Pizza, except the service was so slow they cancelled and went to some disgusting burger place then I will not advertise for them! They slept in the Scout hall at Bunbury Sea Scouts, well some slept, some stayed awake all night talking and then watching a boy sleepwalking around who had to be kept away from the smallest boys as he was in danger of squashing them!

Nope, the poor, sainted Scout Leader didn't get any sleep!

They then spent the day sinking rafts, sailing and messing around on a canoe.

Ian and I spent the evening out to dinner with friends, a novelty for us, and it was lovely, really good fun. After dinner we tried to go out in Busselton but, quite frankly, it was lame, so we went home. The high point of the after dinner evening being our amusement at having to use a fingerprint to get into a rubbish pub where we only stayed for one drink, blech.

By eleven the Vasse was closed and the Ship too noisy outside and empty inside so we went home.

Sunday started out fairly lazy, our friends from last night were in Busselton at 6am to run a stall at the market selling off china and bits and bobs they no longer need, a shame they couldn't set up until after 7 though really :o) we sauntered around the market and drove to Bunbury. We stopped at the Marsdon Waterfront to wander around but the market there was almost empty aswell, a running theme. In to town to do a little shopping and check out a food and wine show that we decided was too expensive to bother with so drove a little further on and looked for somewhere to have lunch. After checking out every menu in the street we decided on chinese and it was the most authentic tasting chinese meal we have had in Australia in nearly 3 years, well done China City in Bunbury.

Being rather full we went back to the car and drove around to the waters edge and did what all elderly types do and nodded off.

We did check the 3 kids were still alive first!

About 45 mins after we hoped to leave we had all our sunburnt (gah) tired but happy children back and drove home. All 3 were asleep almost instantly :o)

Missy went to bed by 6, guess who had stayed awake all night, and the boys who sensibly got enough sleep, went later.

Lovely weekend, but what is this??? no pictures??? this will not do.

Kristian brought the garden buddy home, a little dog who visits your garden, has his picture taken and details of the plants in your garden get noted down. It is very sweet, here is a picture that for some reason didn't make it into the school book!

And the returning energetic scouts/cub

For Grandad

2010-10-31T21:26:00.006+08:00

Missy has been busy creating things. Not a lop sided bookshelf or mis-shapen keyring (still in use for the shed?) but impressive nonetheless :o)

We have been harvesting more veggies, the neighbours are grateful!

Whirlwind

2010-10-25T08:58:00.002+08:00

We are busy, lots of interest in the cafe, probably 3 serious lookers, no offers :o(......... yet!

Marisa is keeping us on our toes with Panto rehursals, all three went on a jaunt to Donnybrook for a trek around the area with Cubs and Scouts (my cub came second with his group) even though they broke the egg they were supposed to look after all day, I think Kristian dropped it within 2 minutes of starting out :o) there were rides and bouncy castles laid on and a great day was had by all, it was great to go home after work on Saturday and snooze on the sofa too!

Sunday was a lovely family day out, a beautiful sunny day, great company and the kids all had fun with friends too! just what we all needed after the ups and downs of the last week or so.

Ian and I mooched around the local galleries while the kids cleaned out bunnies which seems like a good deal to me.

On the way home we found a couple of dogs playing chase in the road, a busy road, so we ended up taking them home! 2 boys! we have 2 ladies at home who weren't impressed and the cat was livid!

As we weren't able to reach the owner we had to let the ranger take them to prison :o( funnily enough the cat is VERY friendly today, ratbag!

As I sit here

2010-10-16T09:51:00.003+08:00

typing away on my pc, using valuable electrickery I gaze baffled at my latest bill from the lovely people at Synergy, it is double, actually no, it is more than double the one from this time last year. I know this not because I keep meticulous records filed away carefuly, but because it says so on the bill. Gasp. How did this happen, I suspect it may be the secret teenager syndrome but I am not sure. An ever increasing need to be charging up Nintendo Ds' or playing music on Ipod speakers or Facebook friending could be the reason. I'm fairly sure we are good at switching off lights, perhaps it is time to banish the one light left on in the hall at night, or perhaps not. No one likes tripping over the cat at 3am, no one likes cleaning up the mess of sick children who didn't get to the loo in time and kindly left puke on the floor for Mum to find (actually I did that to my mum once! should have left a light on :o)

I could limit time on the pc, but then they would be in trouble at school for not keeping up their hours on Mathletics, I could ban Ian from his laptop but then how would we work out where to live when we return to the UK?

Where in the world should the HoJos go next?

Surprise me, where do you think we should go next ;o)

Panto Season

2010-10-15T08:07:00.004+08:00

It's all about Missy at the moment!

With the run of one act plays not over yet, performances this Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, Missy has auditioned with the adults for a part in Snow White and has earned a speaking part. She is very happy :o)

We find out tonight which part it is and how much of our lives will be taken up with rehursals, she has some lovely friends through drama and we are glad she will get to spend more time with them.

Missy Acting UP!

2010-10-10T18:13:00.001+08:00

BEHIND THE STAGE DOOR
Date: 8th to 17th October 2010

Venue: Weld Theatre, Busselton

Contact Details:

Tickets on sale now from Callows Newsagency or contact Marj Evans 9752 1657 or marj@swisp.net.au

Adults $15 Concession $10

Acting Up! and Busselton Repertory Club Inc present Behind the Stage Door - shining a light on young Busselton actors featuring three one act plays.

Behind Door 1: Lisa - when a home is broken can a heart be repaired. Directed by Terry Thompson

Behind Door 2: Out of Control - where technology steals innocence. Written/Directed by Russell Chandler

Behind Door 3: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - written by CS Lewis, adapted by Glyn Robbins. Directed by Clara Kotai

Matinee 4.00pm - Fri 8th + Sun 10th + Sun 17th october
Evening 7.30pm - Sat 9th + Sat 16th october

Thats the advert, Marisa plays Lisa and the kids are great.

Only 2 more shows to go and then it is nearly Panto season...oh no it isn't...oh yes it is :o)

Picture this

2010-10-08T21:03:00.003+08:00

This is the only known picture of me that I like.
Enjoy.

Circa 1993/1994, aged 23/24
I wish I thought I looked like that, back then.
Also, Charlie was the coolest, best dog in the world, ever.

That's all, short and sweet!

Australia's Top Stuff-up

2010-10-03T21:04:00.002+08:00

you can't make it up.... happen to see the last show where the vote is tense, blah blah and the winner is Kelsey, what do you have to say, oh whoops no it isn't, the other girl won, you know, the tall one!

whoops!

wonder who gets the sack over this one?

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/playing-blame-game-on-next-top-model/story-e6frf96f-1225933364324

no one, so thats ok then, I have to say I was impressed at Kelseys' cool, she'll do well.

Pictures

2010-10-02T08:44:00.001+08:00

They climbed

We grew

A well balanced meal

Where have we been?

2010-09-30T08:49:00.004+08:00

We have lost the blogging mojo, well Ian gave up months ago...but here I am picture blogging away. My camera died, my lovely old Kodak EasyShare DX7630, you know, so old it had a lens cap! and I had used the kids camera a couple of times, a lovely gift when we left Axbridge from a sweet friend, but it wasn't mine (blush) so I gave up...and then I had a birthday, not just any birthday. A 40th. I am told this is significant in some way, however I notice I was only one day older and nothing fell off or stopped working (apart from the camera) so I guess I am coping. I digress.
Fraser was flying out to Canberra on Friday night, 2 days before my birthday so we swapped presents at dinner. About an hour before his bus left for Perth I gave him his main present from Ian and I, a water proof, drop proof camera with case, with lanyard to help it not get left behind. It is a little beauty.

He in turn game me my main present.... a new camera! snap. A little Canon Power shot which is waaaay clearer than my oldie but goodie Kodak. Which, in true style should have started working perfectly the second I was given a new one, but nope, not this time, poor old thing.

Any how, to celebrate the ability to finally take some pics I have added some. The one I wanted to post is on Frasers camera along with 300 pics from Sydney and Canberra so, nope, not downloading them onto my pc, it is a fab picture of me 2 days before turning 40 with our table number, 39. It is fab because the number hides most of me, but yeah, it made us laugh :o)

After dinner on the Friday we dropped Fraser at the bus, made sure his luggage made it into the hold and his camera around his neck, slipped an envelope of money to his teacher in case he lost his (notice a theme here?) and waved madly (at the mosquitoes to try and stop them biting) goodbye and went home.

Fraser has never had his own mobile so we lent him one for his trip. The teachers encouraged the kids to have them but we didn't expect him to use it. The lovely chap rang or texted every day, letting us know he was ok, letting us know he had almost run out of money 2 days early, yes, I told him about the extra stash, no she didn't let him have it all ;o) we also rang him a couple of times, on his birthday the first he has spent away from us, he rang letting us know his flight was cancelled, we expected him home on Sunday evening, then it was delayed by 24 hours so they were all put up at Virgin Blues' expense, flown to Melbourne then on to Perth and finally landed after midnight on Tuesday morning. I particularly enjoyed collecting him at 3.30 am!

He remembered to shower, took loads of pictures, didn't lose his camera, had fun, bought us all a present each (jewellery for me clever boy) and managed to pack his uniform (needed for a trip to government house) in someone elses bag, less to carry I guess?

So thats where we have been

Cafe for sale

2010-09-10T09:07:00.004+08:00

Great location opposite major supermarket.

Set in a pretty building that used to be the Catholic Church.

Neat little takeaway area too, handy when the tourists all want food at the same time.

Yes, they are always that cheerful.

Ooh well known chemist nearby.

Great position. Lovely Jewellers over there, and newsagents.

Oooh well known butchers too. Also opposite a well known bakers, how handy is that. All your shopping and coffee, and cake, and lunch, and afternoon tea, in the same shopping centre.
Sunny Busselton a beautiful place to live and work, need a 4 bed 2 bath house to go with it? we have one of those too, beach side of the highway, 2 minute stroll to the lovely soft sand...tempted? go on.....

How was your Thursday?

2010-09-04T16:00:00.002+08:00

Mine went like this....

Wake up and spend an hour looking for a missing school jumper. Usually I couldn't care if they freeze ;o) but it was photo day and they must wear full winter uniform....still no jumper.

The car is full of junk to go to the tip so I can't tell if the jumper is under the folded down chairs.

Friend arrives and drives kids to school as I have no seats, still covered by aforementioned junk for the tip.

Go to school, leave kids at auditorium to queue for photo spot as we would like a group one. Go into ofice and fill out form for friend who forgot and lives a ridiculous distance away from school, fill out form for group pohoto as I lost mine.

Find child and give form to her, get nice hug.

Borrow jumper from Kristians school friend, run back to Auditorium to see children leaving.

Erm no..... they have already had a picture taken, get dragged back in, wearing full set of jumpers, refuse to have picture taken in standard formation, how dare I choose my pose, after all I'm only paying for this in advance.

Leave auditorium, return jumper to lovely boy, grovel to nice uniform shop lady and borrow one so Kristian has one for later in the day when the individuals are taken.

Phone rings, answer daft question and promise to ring lack later (I won't remember).

Leave school in heaviy laden car. Drive to junk yard to offload the metal which is of use to a friend.

Answer phone again, elderly friend I have been visiting daily for the last 6 months or so died last night. Very sad but kind of relieved it is over for her, she has had a horrible few weeks. Ring her hubby for a chat. No one is at the yard so unload off roof bars by self, not recommended, nearly lost a side window! Notice metal has leaked rust all down the back and sides of the car overnight. Nice. Guard dog barks at me the entire time. Drive off feeling rubbish.

Get to tip and read sign which says tip is open but does not accept rubbish Monday to Friday!!!........ erm, hardly useful.... drive in anyway and am given directions to Dunsborough.
Drive out, call Ian and tell him I'll be 2 hours late for work. Bawl eyes out. Notice fuel guage is flashing.

Drive half way to Dunsborough, stop to refuel, lovely lady asks how my day is going and probably wishes she hadn't. Says all the right things. Drive to Dunsborough, fuel light no longer flashing, hurrah.

Get to tip, hand over tip pass, we get 2 free ones a year, how much would it cost I ask? $2 plus half a tank of fuel!

Drive to open landfill and hurl stuff into pit, quite theraputic really, if not a little smelly and scary, not fond of gulls swooping me.

Wave favourite old sterio goodbye, it is older than Fraser, from back when a 3 disc cd changer was the height of cool.

Drive to Dunsborough, stop at a favoutire cafe for a takeaway coffee, I guess I earned it.

Drove home.

Faffed for a bit, got cleaned up and went to work so late I had lunch and left.

Dropped a frige off to someone that needed it and went to get the kids and take them to swimming.

Get phone call at pool, did I hear the news..... comiserated with each other for a bit and ranted about the tip being open but not accepting runnish... "didn't you know that" she asks? well durrrrr.....

crap day.

Yes the jumper was wedged under the seat, kinda obvious really.

Drove Missy to Drama, came back, ate too fast and picked her up again, drank beer and slept well.

The end and no more like it please.

10 year olds

2010-08-19T10:48:00.006+08:00

Most pictures of Kristian look like this

or this

but every now and then I trick him into looking like this.

Which is half way to normal, for Kristian anyway!
Hurrah for sneaky Mums!

Happy Birthday Kristian

2010-08-16T08:09:00.006+08:00

Today Kristian is 10, so yesterday we filled the car with children and went to Bunbury for the day.

First stop was a hill near the ocean with cardboard boxes. For sledging. See, you don't need snow, just a grassy hill and boxes. It was really good fun and Kristians friends hadn't tried it before so we stayed for over an hour.
Just as well there was decent coffee near by.

After disposing of the boxes, to the disgust of Kristian who wanted to take one home, we went to watch the waves which were huge.

We managed to Get Kristian and Dom soaked tee hee, and went to the car to refill on chocolate muffins.

Next was bowling, Kristian and his friends had an alley and the rest of us were on another one, too funny. Just as well the sides were blocked or there would have been tears before bedtime :o) and, no, in case you were wondering, all those games of skittles in the pub made no difference to my game and Ian still beat us all, almost twice over!

Next was the annual trip to Hungry Jacks (Burger King) which was no less dissapointing than usual, dirty tables, dirty floors, dodgy microwaved tasting bread and very small burgers, I don't know how the big chains get away with such small, unappetising meals. The other facilities were dirty too.

Home to play for another hour or two and then feet up in front of a cheap ex-rental copy of the last Indiana Jones film and all is well with the world.

It was a grand day out :o)

We have grass

2010-07-28T17:36:00.002+08:00

it just doesn't grow well in the summer and takes an age to recover.
The front garden survives better than the back garden.

Happy now Vic? all is well with the world :o)

Gardening in Busselton

2010-07-27T11:58:00.002+08:00

Vegie garden outside the kitchen.

Silver inspects the mint.

Homegrown Broccoli

Lots of lettuce.

All would be peaceful if these 2 hadn't both come into season, boy can they whine and upset the neighbours dogs!
Fascinating stuff eh?

We are finally getting the place smart, hopefully it will be nice to sit in come the summer when we finally have some more visitors! Yay...The kids are so excited that Grandad (Carolyns Dad) is coming out again and bringing a friend this time which should be fun.

Just dropping in...

2010-07-23T08:06:00.004+08:00

Here we are again, time flies, we are busy filling in forms for our visa application, lots to do and check and double check, make sure everything is correct so we have no problems, we hope. Think kindly of us if you get a moment, it is quite important to us :o)

Everyone is well, happy, big kids off to Rottnest again for some community service and a fair chunk of messing around the island, so just us and the youngest dude for the weekend again.

Have fun!

(picture courtesy of the smallest member of the family, unflattering angle no?)

Hide and seek

2010-07-14T16:06:00.002+08:00

Originally uploaded by The Hojos

Are you in there?

Baby pups

2010-07-14T16:01:00.001+08:00

sept 09 101
Originally uploaded by The Hojos

Awwww were they ever that small?

Dear Neighbours

2010-07-13T18:23:00.003+08:00

What can I say, I apologise, it isn't my fault we were given a second set of drums :o)

Thanks Jessie Poo

A few decent Garage Sales

2010-07-03T16:29:00.003+08:00

and look what we got!

Just the instruments though, we already had the child.

Never judge a book by its cover

2010-06-21T07:38:00.003+08:00

unless it looks like this!

Ian found this gem in the second hand book shop in Busselton while we were searching for something in particular and I couldn't resist. It is also an interesting read in case you were wondering.

Young Blogger

2010-06-19T09:19:00.002+08:00

Krispie has started blogging, slightly more often than us, so be nice, he is only little :o)
the link appears duff so try this
www.the3hojos.blogspot.com

Happy Birthday Ian

2010-06-15T10:07:00.004+08:00

As Ian cooks porridge for the boys before he goes to work each day he didn't have time for gifts this morning, awwww shame....but he opened cards, read jokes from the kids, drank his tea and drove off in the rain to work.

So instead of cheerful birthday pics, I decided to show you what we have been doing lately.

We dismantled Marisas cabin bed, it didn't really enjoy emigrating and has seen better days. Bye bye bed. We had hoped to sell it but it refused to come apart properly and was beaten most cruelly in order to become small enough to fit through the door. The spare wood will no doubt come in handy one day :o)

After the room was empty, that took a day, it was thoroughly wiped down and hoovered (vacuumed) and new boxes appeared.

For once Missy didn't have to worry about her room as the contents were all in the lounge, like this.

Her room is now pretty much done, we do still have to paint a wall, but may save up for a fitted robe instead, so we will happily leave that. The light doesn't work either, but we will gloss over that and move on....

The dogs are recovered from the drama of trying to kill each other off and nearly managing and are mostly here, in front of the fire with Kristian.

In the garden we have been building a shelter for the animals to keep them out of the rain/sun depending on the season, have been building gates to keep the dogs off the veggie garden, that project has taken 2 months so far, not bad eh? we could be professional carpenters!

The garden was a bit of a wasteland but is a work in progress as you can now see.

Hopefully now you can see what we have been up to we are forgiven for not blogging much lately.

To the dogs!

2010-06-04T09:30:00.004+08:00

Oh the drama and screaming yesterday morning, and no, they weren't arguing over whose day it is to sit in the front of the car...

Kristian ran to me crying and shouting 'Lilah is killing Cleo'

Oh dear :o( she really was.

Lilah likes to drag Cleos collar off her, today she got her teeth caught in the collar and couldn't let go and Cleo couldn't breathe. At all. She was floppy and lifeless on the floor. The collar all twisted around Lilahs front teeth and she couldn't let go and was terrified.
Marisa was sent for the Vet number and phone and proceeded to make the call. I grabbed a knife but couldn't cut through the collar so sent for the scissors and managed to cut through a huge dogs collar.
Cleo is still not breathing and was floppy and lifeless.
Talking to the Vet while performing chest compressions on an enormous dog was not what I expected to be doing at 8.15 yesterday morning.

With the collar off and after what felt like hours of waiting, she started to breathe again, foaming at the mouth and making a dreadful noise, but breathing.

Poorly dog and wailing children were loaded into the car and taken to the Vet, where a friend met us and took wailing children to school. At this point we didn't know if Lilah had damaged her teeth or mouth in all this.

After a few hours at the vets, Cleo was pronounced fit and well and shan't be wearing a collar in the garden anymore. Lilah was also fine but looking a little forlorn and they pined dreadfully while apart.

Stupid dogs.

Carolyn spend half the day cosseting dogs whilst covered in blood and other dog related gore.

Happy days. They were so much easier when they were this size, however I appreciate their better bladder control now they are older, just not wiser.

The 2nd June 2008

2010-06-03T07:24:00.003+08:00

2 years already, it seems to have flown by and it is easier to put up with, but no, it isn't better and it still hurts and we still miss you xx

Marisa is 12

2010-05-11T07:26:00.008+08:00

She started the day early which almost never happens, opened some presents, mostly items of black or grey clothing, and scampered off to school. Tradition has it that kids take sweets or cake into school so Marisa took in a piece of cheese. Her request was a cake that looked like cheese so we made 3. Cheddar, Edam and Danish Blue!

The Danish Blue went to school, the Cheddar got eaten at home on her Birthday, the Edam was supposed to be for Saturday when we had a house full of friends but we seem to have forgotten to do that.

Saturday morning her friends arrived and we piled into the car to go to Bunbury for a bash at Roller Skating. I'm fairly sure no huge injuries occured but there were some spectacular crashes. Carolyn skated round a couple of times and decided her forte was standing on the sidelines with a friend howling with laughter at the teenagers on the rink. Priceless.

Some food was noshed, drink slurped, games played, no sympathy was given out for injuries, I'm harsh like that :o)
Kristian was allowed to bring a friend so he wouldn't feel the need to annoy the older kids and it worked well, D has a whizz on the rink and didn't tease K, who wasn't a whizz! poor boy limped around the edge wailing that he was the worst skater in the rink, I'm pretty sure I saw one person worse than him!

It would appear that at least one child is off for xrays this week, oops, and has been on crutches all weeks, double oops!

We drove back leaving kids in various places their parents were hoping we would leave them but still ended up with a few at the house playing on the Wii.

Eventually all but one were gone, so Ian, having finished work, joined us for a meal to end the day. Lovely.

Gorgeous Girl

2010-05-02T21:02:00.004+08:00

I can't believe this gorgeous girl of mine will be 12 this week.

Where did that cute baby go?

Reading

2010-04-29T07:53:00.002+08:00

Fraser and Kristian are reading the paper, Fraser spots an advert for a huge sale and spots something Pokemon related he likes. Kristian reads the advert on the opposite page.

'Food Safety Training' he says. 'Bring me your food and I'll teach it to be safe' he chuckles.

We just about fell on the floor at his humour, he is 9 years old.

Fab kids

In my handbag today

2010-04-09T09:24:00.003+08:00

I am shocking at joining in with memes and awards so why am I doing one I wasn't invited to? because I can :o)
Jen has shown the contents of her bag, so shall I.

This

is my fave going out bag, gotta love Radley :o) matching purse and cute coin purse, a present from Vic which I use often. Yay for unexpected gifts! Also the essential phone (which can't be used for twittering or facebooking, grumble)

Next

is the current day bag which is rapidly wearing out, purse, black hair elastic in case I have to help at the cafe, red discs in a bag, very important these are, two of these puts one child in a play area for two hours, a bargain and I am not looking forward to the kids outgrowing this. Petrol receipt, a coffee card for somewhere I would rather go to have pins in my eyes than drink coffee and I really don't want pins in my eyes,I shall throw the card out now! Blank paper and a mobile recharge voucher as I am out of month on my phone again but won't put the recharge on until I need to make a call. The gold disc is a souvenir from Ngilgi Caves about 15 mins up the road where the chap in the cafe makes a very nice coffee, true, I am generally very rude about coffee attempts around here but his is very nice thank you, a bit strong for me but a jug of hot water makes it all better :o).

and then....they read some books

2010-04-07T15:11:00.002+08:00

A while back the troopers all got certificates for taking part in the summer reading challenge, and here is the evidence ;o)

photo lifted from school website, in case you are wondering the two on the left and the one at top right are mine. Shame only 2 families took part though, does no one use the library any more?

Bathtub Derby

2010-03-29T07:54:00.004+08:00

Last week was the ultimate bonding experience...the Cornerstone Bathtub Derby. Mixed groups from year 7/8 met at the beach and had an hour to contsruct a vessel capable of rounding a bouy and returning in hopefully one piece.

The children had about a month to prepare plans and gather duct tape, rope, cable ties, decoration and bottles up to 3l in volume. I suspect that mostly no planning was involved.

We filled my car with binliners full of milk bottles, having a cafe must have its perks! We hefted our haul onto the beach and got ready to start.

We had a great production line going, first person cable ties 2 bottles together, second person duct tapes them to a second pair of bottles, third person lays them out to look like a surf board, fourh person tapes groups of bottles together and we all take turns at taping and rolling the vessel over to ensure it will not fall apart.
Duct tape supplies ran low so we dispatched a Mum to Bunnings for replacements.

Panic over and with ten minutes to go we started decorating the boat with spray paint and coloured tape, not forgetting our flag on a pole.

By now we had given away dozens of spare bottles to other less super organised groups, but strangely, when we asked to borrow duct tape we were refused! Harsh... very harsh.

The Fish, as we named her was ready and the crew were eager to go. We went to the start line and compared our boat to the competition. We were fairly sure of success as ours seemed capable of floating at least.

And they're off.......... well some are, some boats fell apart at the start and most people were somewhat submerged and getting stung. Our fearsome crew paddled away and returned I think some five minutes before the next boat, much cheering and chanting went on, followed by collecting all the bottles that were floating off into the distance.

After the next heat was the deciding race, so, who will be the winner? we discussed tactics and the benefit of not dangling your legs in the water and off they shot, only to return 10 mins before the opposition. Our boat remained intact, was capable of holding the entire team of 6 without sinking and was the only decorated boat (I think)

After we won soundly, no prizes were given for best decorated or titanic award or best design, shame really as we did a great job, we had a fab little crew who all worked hard and made sure that those that didn't get a chance to row in a race got a little trip around the beach at the end.

After we had tidied up the beach, we were supposed to put the boats in the skip, as ours was the only one to still be capable of floating we really couldn't bring ourselves to chuck it in a skip so I popped it in the trailer to go back to school and dry off a bit.
After a trip to work to brag about our sucess, modest? NO! I went to school to collect the children and managed to wedge the entire boat in the middle of the car, after letting some ari out of a few key bottles we drove home stinking of sour milk.

The Green Machine is in the garden and will at some stage go back to the beach so the 5 of us can test drive it again!

A fab mornings work. Thanks Team!

Picture of Missy and friend paddling away is courtesy of the school website, nice pictures in the local paper too.

Tiger Snake

2010-03-16T16:35:00.001+08:00

Monday 15th March 2010

It was a warm day yesterday and after going to a couple of garage sales and the market in the morning, Carolyn and Kristian were not in the mood to do much so we went home.
Carolyn decided that she was going to relax by doing the ironing, Kristian decided he was going to do as little as possible and Ian decided that there was no way he was going to sit indoors on a nice sunny day, specially when he is desperate to do a bit of exercise in an effort to build up his knee again after ages of struggling to walk let alone exercise.
So Ian got his cycling gear together and decided that he was going to do a decent length ride, but without pushing himself too much.
Ian was having a really good ride early on, cycling down deserted country lanes with the sun on his back and a gentle breeze blowing, as opposed to the gale force winds he normally rides in.
All of a sudden he got the fright of his life, he had been looking at the surrounding countryside rather than looking where he was going and glanced down at the ground in front of his wheel just in time to see that he was about to run over a Tiger Snake, not a very wise thing to do apparently when you’re on a pushbike, as they can apparently move very quickly and think nothing of giving an aggressor a venomous bite, apparently they don’t take into account the fact that it might have been a perfectly innocent mistake.
The Tiger Snake is probably the most poisonous snake in this part of Australia, closely followed by the Dugite, which coincidently, Ian nearly ran over one on his bike a couple of months ago whilst cycling near Port Geographe, you would have thought that he would have learned to look at where he was going after that close encounter, but if you can’t look around while cycling, you might as well stay at home on a treadmill, it would just be a little bit less worrying if they got rid of the snakes and the spiders and the flies and mozzies.
Anyway, back to the Tiger Snake, Ian managed to steer clear of it, but only by about 6 inches (15cm), it’s amazing how fast the brain and body can move in life threatening situations like this, because not only did he manage to steer the bike round the snake, but at the same time he managed to lift his left leg (which is the injured one just in case you’re interested) so that the snake would have one thing less to attack if it was going to and surprised himself as to how high he could lift it, he almost had to lever it off his shoulder to put it back down again, so as you see men can multitask when they have too, they just choose not to most of the time.
The snake didn’t try to attack him in the end and Ian carried on his merry way, in truth the snake was probably laughing his socks off watching this nutter cycling along with one leg over his shoulder and a look of panic on his face.
Further along the ride Ian saw a truly wonderful sight, in a field standing on her own with her baby was a mummy cow and she was trying to manoeuvre herself and her calf into a position where the calf could feed. The thing that made this so special was the fact that the calf was still covered in all that slimy stuff that calves are covered in when they are born, so this calf was obviously not very old and was still a little bit unsteady on its feet, Ian stopped for five minutes and watched, fascinated, while mummy and baby did this little dance together until they connected.
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful apart from negotiating the morons driving in Busselton totally unaware that there is anyone other than them on the road, he got home safely after riding about 40km with some good memories and without any serious reaction to his injured leg.
While we’re on the subject of cycling, the other night while Ian was out on his bike he saw a Kangaroo by the side of the road, this wasn’t one of the dead ones that we would normally expect to see by the side of the road, this was one that looked like he was practising the Green Cross Code (how to cross a road safely for all of those who are too young to remember it), it was just standing on the verge looking, right, left, right again, saw Ian cycling towards him and thought, wait until the traffic has passed.
Ian however, not realising that Kangaroos did the Green Cross Code and that it would be safe to carry on as he was, decided to take defensive action in case the Kangaroo decided to jump on him as he went past and slowed down.
Now neither Ian or the Kangaroo seemed to like this scenario, the Kangaroo stood nervously by the side of the road looking left and right, wondering how long he was going to have to wait and thinking that if he had realised how slow Ian was moving he would have crossed the road ages ago and probably been eating his tea by the time Ian went past that point, Ian, unaware that the Kangaroo was getting pretty fed up with waiting for him to pass, waited until he was within a few yards of the Kangaroo before speeding up so as to get past the Kangaroo quickly.
The Kangaroo obviously saw the sudden speeding up of Ian on his bike as an act of aggression and decided to do a runner, the problem was that there was a fence a couple of yards back from the edge of the road so the Kangaroo had to follow the road, Ian had absolutely no intention of not following the road, so carried on cycling in the same direction as the Kangaroo, much to the distress of the Kangaroo.
A Kangaroo running is a really graceful animal, it reminded Ian of the TV pictures he had seen of a Gazelle or something similar, only the Kangaroo was doing it on two legs which just seemed move effortlessly as if on a couple of springs.
After a short distance and with the Kangaroo obviously not in the mood to race a pushbike, Ian decided to speed up and overtake it so as not to cause it any more distress, as he went past, the Kangaroo stopped and Ian could almost see it give a sigh of relief.
Late afternoon, Fraser and Marisa came back from Scout camp, both dirty, both smelly, both tired, but both happy, that was until Fraser had to do his homework, which had somehow appeared over the weekend, despite assurances by him that everything was up to date.
In the evening it was Veg out time before having an early night.

Craig David

2010-03-16T06:44:00.000+08:00

Saturday 13th march 2010

Craig David eh, now there’s a blast from the past.

Why are we mentioning Craig David you might ask, has he moved to Busselton you might ask, can anyone remember what he was famous and part of the job means that he has to introduce himself as Craig David (because we’d be impressed with that), but not only does he have to introduce himself by name, he has to do it in pigeon English whilst putting on an Indian accent.
Now Ian felt that this was demeaning to the great man, after all, everyone seems to remember his name even if they don’t know why or what for, but he must have been reasonably good at something at some point in his previous career for him to be remembered like that.
So Ian, getting all emotional as he is wont to do when seeing people fall from greatness, put the phone down on him, after all if this company was so good, how is it that he, who probably made more money in his nanosecond of greatness than we will in our lifetime, is reduced to pretending to be an Indian call centre operator instead of living off his well invested money.
Just in case you’re interested, Craig David is not as far as we know, moving to Busselton, we can’t even get someone with a decent Indian accent to work in the curry house down here.
Carolyn thinks Craig David might have been famous in the eighties but doesn’t really care, Ian has heard the name before but doesn’t know why, the girls at work think that he was probably famous in the year 2000, but that has probably got more to do with the fact that they are so young, none of them can remember anything before 2000, although one of them does think they know of a song that he sang and told Ian what it was called, unfortunately Ian was distracted at that exact same moment and missed it.

Twisted

2010-03-13T07:41:00.000+08:00

Ian twisted his knee sometime in the middle of January, it turns out that it is a repetitive strain injury, he’s never had one of those before and if it hadn’t been so painful he would have been quite proud of it, after all he isn’t renowned for doing anything strenuous on a regular basis if he can help it.
Needless to say, the injury stuffed up his cycling routine and with it any ideas he had of cycling from Busselton to Augusta this side of the winter.
To make matters worse for him, the Café has remained busy all the way through the school holidays and is still ahead of last year on a week by week basis, so he has been working long days on his feet, when he should have been resting, but he has been resting when he can and the kids are getting quite adept at getting his beer from the fridge for him, so although the recovery is taking a lot longer than perhaps it should he has been able to get regular pain relief when he is not working.
He has been out on his bike twice this week without any problems, although he is taking it very easy, but he feels good about it and is determined to get out his winter gear when the time comes so that he is fit for next summer.

and then we.....

2010-03-10T16:06:00.004+08:00

Whistlestop tour through our week.......Monday 22nd February to Monday 1st March

Marisa was poorly on Monday as were almost all her friends...hmmm not good, I had to work so fortunately a good friend had her for the day, Tuesday still poorly so at home with Mum and couldn't go to Scouts, Wednesday still ill so another day at home. Enough already and back to school please :o) Well enough to go to the pool Friday night though!

Busy morning on Friday for Carolyn, monthly pilgrimage to see the accountant while the children enjoyed games and crash test dummies and kite flying and cooking etc etc for Jubilee Day at school, K had a friend round after school which was fun, nice chap.

Saturday night was WOMUBU a music festival held on a local estate called Broadwater Farm great music and free tickets for us which was fab. The children climbed the local travelling climbing wall and we listened to music till long after dark. Good times.

Late start on Sunday, I wonder why? trip to Bunbury as nothing better to do looking for odds and ends and stuff for Ian, another pair of sunnies to be replaced for our offspring who seem to lose or break sunnies regularly. Fish and Chips on the Marsden Waterfront which wasn't great, have had much tastier one there before.

Monday was a public holiday so like all sensible people we went to the Beach at Meelup, stopped at a coffee shop based at Ngilgi Cave on the way home to drink coffee and read the paper while various kids, not all ours, roamed around eating ice creams.

At home the children watched a film while we sat out front of the house and enjoyed a light breeze as we read till it was too dark, popped some fish in the oven and chilled out. No cubs this week due to public holiday but back again next week.

I love passport photos

2010-03-04T12:00:00.003+08:00

not my own you understand.

But I am amused by the younger one of Kristian bawling his little heart out and yes that was in is first passort. He did not want to be photographed that day. How they change :o)

In which we did many things which we failed to blog

2010-03-03T11:56:00.004+08:00

So, where was I?
Sunday 21st was the Bushtucker tour it was a fantastic day out. Loads of pics on facebook, either on my profile or look up Olde Chapel Cafe and see the pics there if we aren't friends :o)

We met at the Drive In as it is close to us and we are lazy and old, erm, easy to park at. The three cars, one on its last legs, one a big jar of custard, and ours set off in plenty of time for Prevelly, a gorgeous beach which had a fair few surfers out to play.
We waited for our tour amid much teasing of John (it is the law, we must tease John) got togged up in our various life preservers and put valuables in the jar, just why we ended up carrying Johns manky old towel around with the cameras and car keys is beyond me, but we did.

In 3 canoes we took a short paddle (some of us made a few interesting directional judgements) to Boogaloongar Island where we admired the view and ate green stuff just laying around, yes we ate it, yes it was all sour tasting but we are brave and will eat almost anything (Not Lauren, she was a coward but more of that later).

Off we paddled again and saw where the Bussels built their house near the waters edge and the cliffs the stone was cut from. I would have liked more local history but the dude in charge, Gordon the Guide was a great sport and kept us interested and took our minds off the arm ache.
Nothing could take my mind of my sons dreadful paddling but on we went.

We sped off to a small beach and walked up a cliff face, no really, we did, to see a beautiful view up the Margaret River. Stunning, and interesting as one girl was wearing a short skirt, 2 were in flip flops, and Ian had a bad knee, but we had a ball and managed not only to not drown John but also to not have to take him to hospital as he would keep doing mountain goat impressions.

Soon it was Bushtucker time, the moment we were all waiting for, we ate all sorts of odd grape looking things (sour) and bits of weed (sour) and a plant that supposedly was used to brew a kind of coffee, yep you guessed it (sour).
Out came the real food and there was loads of it, kangaroo, turkey and ostrich, pesto, local honey, local bread, olives, too much for us all to eat which is no easy task. Then came the Witjuti grub :o) It was in yoghurt and tasted to me like prawns in a creamy pasta sauce, I have to admit I didn't linger over it as I wanted my reward. If you want to know what the reward was you'll have to come over and eat a grub!

Missy ate one, Rodelle, Chelsea, Kiara, Rachel, John, Aden, Ian and Carolyn did too. I think Fraser, Kristian, Jessie and Lauren wimped out. I'm sure they will correct me if I am wrong!

Swift tidy up and binning of rubbish followed, then a trip to the cave with a huge nest of bees hanging above it, anyone regret eating honey now? There are pictures of the troopers who crawled through the cave in the Old Chapel pictures on facebook for all to admire. We listened to some tales in the dark, took pictures of filthy people and made our way back to the canoes.

We paddled to another beach where most of us swam, some got yelled at for splashing and generally being a pain (no names, but you know who you are) and mostly just chilled out for a while

It was race time, there was a lot of cheating and poor direction and even getting out and dragging. Suffice it to say my team didn't win, but Aden won a bottle of wine which he kindly donated to Ian and I, the kids got t shirts and John a cap.

We dragged everything back to the van and thanked Gordon for a fantastic day out.
Jesie wanted to get her car home while it was still in one piece, so she and Kiara headed off, the rest of us went to the Yallingup Maze for a coffee (Ian, Carolyn, Aden and Rodelle) and a run around the maze followed by milkshakes (everyone else) we sat and played with puzzles some more succesfully (John) than others (Aden) although he did pick the hardest of the lot :oD

We had had enough by then and made sure everyone was going to get dropped off in the right place and went home. All that was left was a pair of stray shoes (Rachels) to return another day.

Tired but happy end of the week.

This blog is boring

2010-02-18T17:34:00.004+08:00

You know you are in trouble when someone walks up to you and tells you that your blog is boring. Not enough updates I guess. Sorry :o)

We have been working hard, Ian is hoping his foot will get better in time for our Bushtucker trip on Sunday which we are really looking forward to. We get to go in a canoe up a river, eat some grubs n kangaroo n 'stuff' look at a cave and more paddling of the canoe. Sounds fab. We'll let you know how it goes. All 15 of us :oD

We had a few drinks to celebrate living in Oz for 2 years which was fun. 15 adults and 10 kids, great night in. Thanks kids for all the tidying (and I am not being sarcastic, they worked like little troopers).

I put these beauties in to brighten up the doorstep.

The boys had to have needles today, Fraser seems to have missed out his year 7 jabs, not sure how but he has had 2 today, Kristian only needed one and was happy to go for ice cream after. Carolyn had a coffee because she didn't have a needle today, only brave soldiers got the reward today. What Missy will be like when she has hers at school I shudder to think. No ice cream there!!!

A conversation between Marisa and Fraser.... 'Fraser there is a huge hole in your sock' 'Mmmmm but it still covers most of my foot'. Okaaaay then, all is well in the world according to Fraser. (It was more hole than sock and is now in the bin)

So am I forgiven for being boring Elena???

xc

People

2010-02-03T07:29:00.006+08:00

People are still dropping by, making me feel guilty about not blogging. So I have.

Tempting to stop there ;o)

What have we done? The window got fixed, not had the bill yet though!!!

On Sunday 24th January We went to Pemberton,about 1 1/2 hours away and spent a rather lovely day there, sadly without camera. Looked at the town, it was small, wandered around the tourist info, Museum under construction but enough to look at, tried to get lunch at the local Cafe. Far too expensive for us, evening meal prices, so we toddled off and found somewhere that sounded like a coffee house tucked up along a few lanes. It was lovely and peaceful with gardens for the tribe to wander around while we read the Sunday Paper, I do miss having a choice of Sunday papers, need to take a book in the car methinks.

Lunch was nice, Nachos, breakfast pie (um that'd be quiche then) decent coffee, there were a couple of galleries on site so we mooched, admired furniture, fainted at the prices and left.

We found the Gloucester tree, a huge pegged fire lookout tree which people were climbing. Sadly we all had the wrong shoes so we watched and made jokes about falling off and no safty net! The pegs wobbled as people climbed.

We asked if many people had died climbing the tree, a few was the answer!

We stopped at a resort on the outskirts and walked to the falls, pretty. Drove around to the lake for a swim. I think we could happily spend the day there which includes the use of canoes, boats, archery...and a gorgeous fresh water lake to swim in.

We were very late home, quick dinner and bed.

Monday we worked, Tuesday was Australia Day, a public holiday (yay)
We got up early and dressed the cub/Scouts ready for parade. Our Scout troop attends the Dunsborough ceremony, raises the flag, looks smart, plays for a while when the adults start chatting amongst themselves and then run off in many directions.

It was one of Missys' friends birthday so off she went to beat everyone at golf again, a five every time on a par 3 isn't bad at 11 years old :o)

The rest of us went off for breakfast and a wander around Dunsborough. We went for a drive and found a few arty places, mostly closed, a Chocolate factory, with samples, a winery, also with samples and came back in time to collect Missy.

On Friday Marisa had a sleepover with a couple of friends, the boys went swimming with a friend and we made plans for tomorrow.

After work on Saturday Marisa was returned after a good day out at the Bird Park, we all ate and got rugged up for a night at the Drive In.

I think Busso Drive In is the last survivng in use in WA, we watched Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs, quite funny but boring by the end, followed by 2012 and as we all enjoy a good disaster movie it went down well, we loved the big screen and were happy that the battery wasn't flat by the end as we listened to the soundtrack on the radio.
The hot dogs and coffee were ok but the midnight finish was a tad late, and cold.

When we got home Carolyn finally had a chat with her Dad after not being able to catch him at home (teenager!) but not for long as it was so late.

Late start on Sunday, worked on some menu changes for the cafe and in the afternoon went to a local Country Farm play place and fed animals, kids ran amok in the play areas and adults read the papers and drank endless coffee, instant but free and about 6 types to choose from.

A good end to the holidays.

Oh yes she did

2010-01-21T07:48:00.004+08:00

Marisa was jumping indoors even though she has been warned many times that this isn't safe. Jumping is for outdoors, oh yes, for good reason.
Marisa stuck her foot through a window, she lay on the floor and bled. A lot.
Her lovely Mum picked her up and carried her to the car, she cried a fair bit. Missy not Mum, she will cry when the bill for the broken window comes through.

Missy was cleaned up and poked at to make sure there was no glass in her foot.
It hurt. A lot.
Missy had to have a Tetanus jab, she didn't enjoy that bit either.
She got stuck back together and had an iced lolly for being fab.
She got a huge bandage on the offending foot to make her Dad feel sorry for her and not kill her when he got home.

Marisa spent the afternoon hiding in her room waiting for Dad to get home.

Dad did not kill her.
Dad did cuddle her though.

We made her go out as it was Petticoat Lane markets tonight and we wanted to go. She wore her heeleys and got wheeled along most of the time.
We didn't find anything we wanted which was a bit of luck, so we left.
Had dinner.
No one else broke anything so we went to bed.

AJ2010

2010-01-20T15:48:00.002+08:00

The scouts had a fab time

They looked like this when they left, early in the morning.

They spent 2 weeks with 10,000 other scouts at Cataract Park, they had an awesome time, so I'm told.
They looked like this when they came back :o)

Marisa managed to get into a local paper in Sydney so will have to scan that one in later.

Short and sweet, just like Missy ;o)who is currently in trouble, but I'll save that for tomorrow! Doncha love a cliffhanger?

A picture post

2010-01-07T08:43:00.003+08:00

I guess by the visits we are getting people still want blog posts, and as we haven't managed a proper one in, oooh a month or two here are some more pics to keep you going.

We went to the Ugg shop in Dunsborough to check out the price of Cardi Uggs for Vic and accidentally bought me a top and skirt :o)

The cake, thanks again H.

Christmas day on the beach with friends, no Fraser and Ian, they were in A&E for 2 hours as Fraser is determined to be allergic to stingers.

This is what happened on Christmas eve, don't ask!!!

This also happened Christmas Eve, snigger, sorry B!

Maybe in honour of our 16th wedding anniversary on the 8th Jan we will get Kristian to take a pic of us as well.
Fraser and Marisa are in Cataract Park, Sydney for the 2010 Australian Scout Jamboree and shan't be seen again until the 15th, no photos sadly but many a scary tale I suspect.

It must have just passed midnight in the UK as Skype is kindly reminding me my Mum should be celebrating her 67th birthday. Yeah. Great. Miss you xx

Christmas Day 2009

2009-12-30T18:18:00.000+08:00

Friday 25th December 2009

We were woken up at a reasonable hour this morning, 7.30am isn’t bad, by the kids, they had brought their duvets (doonas) out of their rooms and set up camp outside our bedroom.
They are so well trained, they just sat quietly outside our room, for at least thirty seconds anyway, before one of them made a silly noise, closely followed by another and then another, it sounded a bit like a frog chorus without the frog sounding bits, in fact, if he hadn’t already done it Paul McCartney could have used the idea to make a hit single.
Eventually, after about 5 minutes, we gave in and let them make us a cup of tea in return for them having the pleasure of us watching them open some of their presents.
So our day started with us drinking tea in bed, made and very well we must add, by the children, while they unpacked some of their presents at the end of our bed, they loved it and we think it’s fun too.
We had eggs and bacon for breakfast cooked by Ian, then opened our presents and the kids presents from friends and family, before going down the beach for a swim.
There have been no reports of stingers this year and if we stayed local one of Marisas friends was going to come with us, so we went to the beach at the end of the road, the water was warm and calm and we were soon swimming around with our snorkels.
After about 20 minutes Marisas friend and her mum turned up, then about ten minutes later Fraser got caught by a couple of stingers across his face, one of them was right next to his eye and he had what looked like blisters pulsing up and down under his skin.
As it was so close to his eye and in an area where it would be difficult to use ointment without getting it in his eye, we decided to take him to hospital to get it checked over.
Ian and Fraser were in the hospital for about two hours with a hot compress covering the affected areas before Fraser was seen by a doctor, they checked the lens of his eye to see if that had been scratched and it hadn’t, so all they could do is give them a bit of advice and send them home. By the time they got home, Carolyn and the kids had come back from the beach and had started to prepare dinner.
The advice we got just in case you’re interested, was use a hot or cold compress, have a hot shower, take panadol or ibuprofen and use an antihistamine.
We think we’ll just stick to our own advice and drive to Meelup in future, even Fraser, who seems to attract these stingers, never seems to get stung down there.
For Christmas Dinner we had a Duck stuffed with Turkey Breast and Quail, we cooked it on the spit over the BBQ and had it with an assortment of fresh salads and mashed potatoes whilst sitting under the patio in the early evening, it was delicious, a bit like a Boxing Day dinner really.
In the evening the kids played with their presents while we watched a couple of episodes of Only Fools and Horses, then had an early night.

Merry Christmas and Apologies

2009-12-26T18:25:00.002+08:00

Early November to 24th December 2009

Firstly, to anyone out there who is still remotely interested in what we are getting up to, or whether we are still alive and kicking, we apologise for the lack of regular blog over the last six or seven weeks.
The last few weeks have been manic for us with regard to work and play and we just haven’t had the time to sit down and blog on a regular basis, and you know what it’s like, get a few days behind and you’re looking for a gap in your life when you have enough time to blog about those few days in one hit.
Don’t find enough time to blog about a few days for a few days and you are looking for a gap in your life when you can blog a week etc, next thing you know 7 weeks have gone by and it’s time to hold your hands up, apologise, say Merry Christmas, and promise that it won’t happen again.
That is to say, the lapse in blog won’t happen again, not the say Merry Christmas won’t happen again, after all we would hope that we would still be around next year to say it again, the merry xmas bit that is.
We will from now on be eating allbran for breakfast in an effort to get a bit more regular, and if we don’t manage it every day we’ll try to make sure we keep you in touch with our movements at least every couple of days.

The Café has been very busy over the last 7 weeks, this has also coincided with us staying open until about 5’ish Monday to Friday, which invariably means that Ian isn’t home before 6pm and as he starts at about 7am most days and is trying to get fit enough for this bike ride that he wants to do from Busselton to Augusta at the end of the summer, we are not normally in the mood to do anything other than relax after dinner.
The bike ride is the one that he had planned to do at the end of November, but because of the longer hours in the Café and the fact that we are not going to have daylight saving this year, Ian wasn’t getting a chance to practice and he felt that although he was pretty sure that brute force and ignorance would get him through it if required, he wouldn’t enjoy it and he wants to be able to enjoy it, so it has now been put back to the end of the summer.

Over the last few weeks the kids have had loads happening as well, there seemed to be something extra to do with Scouts every week, Bowling, Billy Cart Racing, Garage Sale, Meetings, Camps, Fundraising, getting ready for the Scout Jamboree in January, and all this on top of their usual meetings.
The kids have all done well at school, with Marisa being one of a select few to be in the “One Club”, you only get in it if your results are predominately “1” and definitely have none below a “2” for effort, but then she would wouldn’t she.
Kristian has been taking it easy at school and doing just well enough to keep everybody happy, but he didn’t break into a sweat all year over his class work so we will be pushing him a bit next year to try and get a competitive edge to is work and get him into the “One Club”. He knows he can do it, it’s just that nobody told him that’s what they wanted him to do, so he kept his head below the parapet and had a nice life, in which all his teachers think he is so wonderful.
Fraser has really come along great guns in the second half of the year, after a few misunderstandings between Fraser and his Teachers in the early part of the year, they have worked out how to keep him interested and motivated and he has really come on well, finishing the year top of his class in Science and well graded in Maths, while also working extremely hard to get good results in most of his other subjects.
We are very proud of all three of them.

The school packed up a week before Christmas and we have tried to work it again this year that Carolyn is able to stay at home with the kids, looks after the house, reads the instruction on how the Hoover (Vacuum to you non-English types) works, that sort of thing, while Ian slaves away in the Café, and so far it has worked quite well, the Hoover got switched on on Christmas eve.

The Saturday before Christmas we went round to some friends house for a few drinks in the evening, that is to say Ian went round at 6pm as he didn’t want to go to the Carols by Candlelight service in Busselton, he might have gone if it was going to dark but the thought of Candles in daylight didn’t really do it for him, Carolyn and the kids turned up after the show and the kids played computer games with our friends kids while we had a beer and put the world to rights until about 1am when we caught a taxi home.

On Christmas Eve we invited a few friends and neighbours round for drinky-poos and nibbles, including the kids there were 19 of us and it turned out to be a very relaxed, pleasant evening.
It was the first time that we have had people round for drinks since we have been here, quite sad really, but it is something that goes back to our days in the pubs back in England.

As a landlord of a pub, everybody wants to know everything about you, you don’t know everybody in the town, but everybody in the town knows you and it is quite unnerving at times, you just don’t have a private life except when you are locked away in your own little flat with the curtains drawn, so we have always tried to keep ourselves to ourselves and it has been hard to get out of the habit.

We are only a couple of months short of being in Busselton for 2 years now and up until these last couple of weeks we have still been using the pub as our place to unwind at the end of the week, as we would have done in England.
As in England, a night in the pub over here can be expensive, whereas a few drinks with a few friends sitting under the patio over here can be just as much fun at a fraction of the cost, you just have to drop your guard a little bit and let people get to know you, it’s taken us nearly 2 years to work that out, positively frightening really, but we’re confident we’ll get better at it from now on.

We hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy and Prosperous New Year

It's Christmas time

2009-12-23T16:36:00.005+08:00

Straight to the point. If you are expecting a Christmas card and haven't got it yet, chances are it either got posted on Monday, or is still on my hall table. If you love me you will consider it something to look forward to when the excitement is all over. If you don't love me then why would I send you a card????

Talking of love how can you not love someone who sends a surprise box full of goodies?

Thank you P :o)

Also talking of love, how can you not love someone who remembers you moaning about not being able to buy Christmas Cake decorations in Oz, and posts you some gorgeous ones. Picture of cake will appear after the event.

Thank you H :o)

Here are the babies (ahem) 6 months old already and the size of a healthy young horse. Gorgeous :o)

Kristian filling the doggy paddling pool, it gets hot out here y'know.

The beach at Gnarabup, near Margaret River, lovely spot for a swim and a coffee.

We shall think of you as we eat outside in the blazing sun, Roast meat and salads and treats for us.

Merry Christmas everyone, yes, even you lot that don't let on you are here ;o)

Rubbish bloggers really

2009-12-15T07:19:00.005+08:00

How long since we blogged? really? oops

ah well, I guess we will have to condense November into one post sometime soon and get over it!

In the mean time we are working hard, kids are well, Christmas cards are going to be late, such is life.

Here are some old pics to keep us amused, the publication of which may never be forgiven, but we are a long way away so.... come and get us if you want them taken down :o)

I and N get engaged! awww, note I haven't posted pics from the night of the proposal ;o)Why did we sit in the grottiest part of the pub? was it just because it was near the juke box? I should probably pretend that none of those drinks were mine, but hey. They got married just after we left England boo hoo and looked gorgeous.

sigh, were my kids really ever this small? That boat took Ian hours to build.

ahhhhh just wait till the kids see these :oD

Sorry!

2009-11-30T14:38:00.004+08:00

I have been told off twice now for not posting anything. We are fine, busy, working, having all the children at home ill for most of a week, but we are fine.
We just haven't worked out how to fit blogging in yet.
But we will.
We can't have you miss out on all the funny stories from Puppy Pre-School, The Saturday Girls, Dayd out with the Scouts, the never ending supply of baby bunnies, well.....

eventually

tootle pip

xc

Goat Pie

2009-11-08T08:48:00.000+08:00

Sunday 1st November 2009
We went to the market down at the foreshore this morning, there were quite a lot of people about but we didn’t find anything of interest so we drove to Bunbury, to have a look round up there.
We drove straight to the waterfront at Bunbury and found a small market that we hadn’t realised existed, again there wasn’t much that interested us, apart from a pie stall, it was manned by a lady of African decent and she offered us a taster of a few pies, they were great especially the Goat pie and if we had got a cool box in the car we would have brought a few home, as it was we weren’t hungry enough to eat one then and we didn’t have a cool box in the car, so we didn’t get any, but we’ll be ready next time.
Whilst in Bunbury we managed to find Marisa some cheap boardies (shorts) that will do her through the summer, for a girl she’s not that bad to buy shorts and trousers for, she is so small and skinny that they last for years, the shorts she was wearing today were for age 7-8 and they were only just starting to get tight.
On the way back we stopped off at the Farmers Market and loaded up with fruit for the week, we were hoping to grab some bunny Veg as well but there must have been someone just in front of us that had emptied all the bins.
When we got home we took the puppies for a walk along the beach, we had intended to go for a coffee at the beach shack, but as the warm weather is here and there are plenty of people wandering around, they have closed it for refurbishing and we haven’t got a clue when or if it will be reopening, so we had a coffee at Broadwater Bar and Grill (stilts).
After coffee we walked home and watched Escape to Witch Mountain with the kids, quite a good film and ideal for the kids.

Gullible

2009-11-07T20:53:00.000+08:00

Saturday 31st October 2009
We slept like logs last night after the exertions of yesterday, apart from the obligatory wake up call in what seems like the middle of the night by the puppies.
The first person to order anything in the Café this morning was a tradie working down here for a couple of weeks, he ordered his coffee with Ian and then said “bit bad about the stabbing at the show last night”, it didn’t surprise Ian because of the bad feel about the place but it was the first he had heard about it, but if memory serves him well he thinks it happened last year as well.
Kate was the first member of staff in this morning, when Ian said to her about the stabbing, she said “apparently there were six people stabbed”, one of her mates who was at the show had sent her an email letting her know.
A couple of hours later the Baker who we had seen at the show, came over and asked us if we had seen anything of the stabbings last night, apparently one of his staff had been standing next to the two people who had been stabbed.
As you can imagine, we are now confused as to how many if any did get stabbed, maybe the reason we haven’t had any more reports is because every body else got stabbed, or maybe it’s just a load of tosh, suppose we’ll have to wait until we get the local paper on Wednesday to find out.
We have relayed what is supposed to have happened, to the kids and as they recognised the aggressive behaviour at the show last night, they seem to understand why we wanted them to go with us and not with a group of mates.
It was a fairly busy day at the Café today, these last three days have totally changed the way the week was going and instead of struggling to achieve last years figures for this week, we have blitzed it.
This evening Carolyn and the kids went to the Scout Camp to help feed a load of foreign students who had come down from Perth to help tidy up the bush fire breaks at the campsite, it appears that as part of their visa which allows them into the country to be educated at university, they are required to do a certain number of hours voluntary work, each year they come down to tidy up the campsite and all it costs the Scouts is accommodation in the bunkhouse and food.
We have supplied a load of muffins for the students and a meal for the obligatory awkward student who happens to be a vegetarian, probably the only vegetarian WA.
Ian stayed at home because Carolyn wasn’t sure how late they would be staying and Ian wanted to watch the Arsenal v SCUM football match live (SCUM = spurs).
A lovely evening was had by all, Ian watched with delight, as despite the rough house tactics employed by the Scum, Arsenal stuffed them 3-0, Carolyn and the kids had a great time round the campfire eating and telling stories and got home at 11.30pm absolutely knackered.
And finally, it’s dippy Saturday staff time and this one is a classic.

Todays dippy member of staff is Max, lovely girl but says what she thinks before she thinks about what she is about to say and believes what Ian says.
Ian was making what we call over here a slurry, anywhere else it will be called a paste, but basically he was whisking up some gravy powder and water to make a slurry/paste.
Max said “that looks like chocolate”, knowing full well that Ian was making gravy.

Ian said “it tastes like it too, try it”

So she did, didn’t say anything, but did not go back for seconds.

About fifteen minutes later Ian got her again.

He said to Max “the other day I was helping Fraser with his homework, he had to find out what the word gullible means, so we went to look it up in the dictionary and it wasn’t in there”.

Max said “isn’t it, I would have thought that it would have been”.

Carolyn collapsed in a heap on the other side of the kitchen, saying I can’t believe you fell for that one Max, Max mumbled something along the lines of believing that Ian was telling the truth and Ian almost felt guilty for doing it, but decided against it.

Bandana Day

2009-11-07T07:38:00.000+08:00

Friday 30th October 2009
After being flat out all day yesterday we thought that we would probably come back down to earth today, but it wasn’t to be and we had our busiest day of the year today instead.
It is Bandana Day today and Ian bought all the staff a bandana to wear at work, everyone wore one, even Ian, apart from Aden who doesn’t like to get involved in public displays, but as he doesn’t very often come out of the kitchen we let him off.
Bandana Day is the fundraising day for a group called canteen who are a children’s cancer charity, the bandanas were only $3 each and we bought 10 for us and the staff, we even wore ours to the show in the evening.
We did manage to get our dishwasher fixed today though so that made life a little bit easier, and the staff weren’t sorry to see it working again, it’s been costing them a fortune in moisturiser for the last week.
Ian didn’t manage to finish work until 6.45pm tonight because we had been so busy, he rushed home and got changed, and then we all went to Busselton Show.
No family tickets at Busselton Show, everyone has to pay, last year the guy on the gate took pity on us as there were five of us and let Kristian in for nothing, this time there was no such luck.
The show was busier than last year, there were more people wandering around and the organisers had managed to fill all the stalls, which they hadn’t managed to do last year.
There was a different feel to the show this year, there were a lot more aggressive, drunk, drugged kids wandering around than last year.
Ian reckons that it had something to do with us not having daylight saving this year, there are problems at the show every year by all accounts, but it normally happens after dark, presumably because there is less chance of being seen or getting caught after dark.
Because we don’t have daylight saving this year, all the idiots come out to play an hour earlier, unfortunately this means that they are aggressive/abusive etc while there are still a lot of families around and that won’t do the shows reputation any good whatsoever.
The show was loaded as usual with overpriced tat and dodgy burgers and although all the stalls had been taken, there were a couple of food stalls missing from last year and we’re sure that there were more art and craft displays, we had a go on a couple of rides, ate some dodgy food, watched the fireworks, had a glass of wine with our neighbours from the shopping centre who run the Cleanskins Wine franchise and had a stall at the show, then went home to try and get an early’ish night after an exhausting day.

Life on Mars

2009-11-03T14:40:00.000+08:00

Thursday 29th October 2009
Don’t quite know what happened today really, we were mobbed in the Café today, probably our busiest day of the year so far and just to make it interesting, about 15 minutes before our afternoon member of staff was due to start and we were committed to letting other staff leave as they had worked maximum hours, the staff members mother phoned up to say that she wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be in.
Nothing like a bit of notice, and that was nothing like a bit of notice, fortunately Carolyn was able to come in and help with the close up.
Whether it has anything to do with extra people coming to town because the Busselton Show starts tomorrow, we don’t know, we certainly didn’t have this sort of fluctuation last year, long may it continue.
We watched the last episode of Life on Mars tonight and Ian is a bit confused, he can’t work out whether Sam was from 1973, in which case how did he know about modern police practices, or had gone back in time during his coma, in which case why? And how did he manage to get back to 1973 after presumably dying after jumping off the top of the police station?

Freecycle Busselton

2009-11-02T21:34:00.000+08:00

Wednesday 28th October 2009
It was a ticky overy sort of day at the Café today, a little bit of a rush early lunch, but other than that it just ticked over slowly until late afternoon.
Ian had a discussion with the staff this morning about our visit from the Environmental Health Officer yesterday, he was explaining how between now and ten days time the walls need to be washed down ready for painting, at which point someone pointed out that the wall under the sink was not only a tad grimy, but the space under the sinks is a tad small as well, so it was decided that Little John, alias Robin Hood would fit perfectly under there and as he is the newest member of staff, he probably wouldn’t argue about it, and he didn’t.
This evening we did our bit for Freecycle in Busselton when we swapped one of our garden umbrella stands weighing 13.5 kilo, for a 25 kilo one, the owner of the heavier one had taken ill and couldn’t lift it any more, we thought that a heavier one might be better for our needs but were not bothered enough to go out and buy one, so when this one came up on Freecycle we thought why not?
This evening we had a dossy evening not doing a lot really, Carolyn did some bookwork while Ian played on the computer and found out what Conquesta 2009 (yesterdays blog) meant, it is a way of testing kids using multiple choice answers and is a system used in several countries to see how well their students are doing. Ian had a look at an old paper and is convinced that he did not do anything that difficult when he was in primary school, he didn’t do anything that difficult at secondary school either, but that’s another story.
You will of course be relieved to know that we both would have passed with flying colours, even if we couldn’t quite manage 100%.

Great Aussie Craftsmanship

2009-10-30T17:18:00.000+08:00

Tuesday 27th October 2009
Marisa received a Bronze Certificate from school today for her results in an unannounced Maths test that she took a little while ago, the certificate reads Conqeusta 2009 but she doesn’t know what the test was for and the school haven’t told us what it is for, they have just handed out the certificates and presumably we are expected to be impressed.
As it is we are quite impressed, maths is Marisas weakest subject and she has to work hard to do well, so this is a good result.
It was a bit busier at the Café today, although we were never really pushed it just seemed to be a constant plod for most of the day.
As well as having a fryer that is not working, we now have a dishwasher that is not working, so all the dishes had to be hand washed today which pleased the staff.
Great Aussie Craftsmanship, that’s what all the adverts say, every new piece of equipment that we have bought for the Café, mostly Australian, has packed up on at least one occasion.
We had a visit from the Environmental Health Officer this afternoon, we got a clean bill of health apart from some paintwork that needs repainting and new rubber matting on the floor.
Fraser and Marisa went to Scouts tonight and after dropping them off, Carolyn came home grabbed a bit of food and headed back out again to attend a meeting that was scheduled at Scouts for 6pm and she had forgotten about it. She hadn’t forgotten the meeting just that it was starting half an hour early this week.
After Scouts we relaxed in front of the box for an hour before having an early night.

To The Jetty And Beyond

2009-10-30T07:23:00.000+08:00

Monday 26th October 2009
It was a fairly quiet day in the Café again today, just as well really as one of our fryers has packed up, it did mean that Ian finished work early though so not all bad news.
Ian took the kids out for a bike ride this evening and thinking that they were only going as far as the jetty they were full of enthusiasm, Ian had other ideas and when they got to the jetty, informed them that they would be getting their ice cream from there, but not until they were on their way back from Port Geographe.
The kids whinged about it a bit, but once they had left it behind they cycled well, then on the way back they flew like the wind, the combination of an ice cream with their names on it and cycling with the wind meant that they made really good time.
In the evening after the kids went to bed, we watched a couple more episodes of guff that we had recorded, we have to watch on a regular basis otherwise the Foxtel memory thing fills up and starts deleting stuff