Monday 27th April 2009
Another day off, this one is because Anzac Day fell on a Saturday, so everyone has a public holiday, we did go into work for a while though.
We went into work early to get things ready for tomorrow morning before going to Bunbury, we needed to get some trainers for the kids and as Busselton is either useless for these things or closed depending on which day of the week it is, we decided to check out Bunbury shops instead.
Bunbury shops weren’t a great deal better than Busselton shops really, apart from the fact that they were open of course, but we did manage to find trainers for Fraser and Kristian.
We had lunch in Subway, Carolyn and the kids had their usual Subs, Ian tried a Wrap for a change. We didn’t realise that they did Wraps, Ian thought the one that he had was great.
Showing posts with label Anzac Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anzac Day. Show all posts
Monday, May 4, 2009
Archery Park
Sunday 26th April 2009
We got up early’ish this morning and went to Archery Park, we were the first ones there so didn’t have to queue, we just had a brief lesson on how they work and we were gone.
There were nine targets in all, there were three different distance markers from where to fire based on age, size, ability etc.
Ian, despite having to fire his arrow the farthest, romped it with Marisa coming second. Carolyn came third after realising half way through the course that she could get her best scores by blurring her vision somehow, this seemed quite odd at the time as the rest of us were of the opinion that it was probably better not to mention safer to have a good view of what you are aiming at, but it worked for her so who are we to argue, Fraser came forth, while Kristian trailed along in fifth place.
You will notice that we didn’t say Kristian came last, Ian has decided that he wants to have a go at being politically correct for fear of injuring his sons feelings and getting sued at a later date, so we say he came fifth even if technically he did come last.
After the Archery we went home, made the kids a picnic and headed for the beach, we picked up the Sunday papers on the way and the kids had their picnic on the beach while we sat in the afternoon sun drinking coffee, reading and eating Nachos.
In the evening we tried to watch a Sylvester Stallone film with the kids, Cliffhanger, we had seen it before and couldn’t remember anything that could be inappropriate for the kids.
We must just get acclimatised to the swearing and violence that goes on in films because this film had loads of it right from the start, needless to say it got switched off and the kids had to watch some of the old BBC sitcoms that they show on Foxtel instead.
One of Ians aunts rang tonight, it would appear that in the UK now, you can ring Australia for nothing, the only criteria being that the call doesn’t last more than an hour, so Ian was chatting to her for just under an hour as she was timing it.
While that was going on Carolyn was chatting to Doreen from over the road, it would appear that sadly, their next door neighbours son has died.
Ian then watched Arsenal stuff Middlesborough 2 – 0 in the English Premier League, now that is what we got Foxtel for and Ian is looking forward to next season already.
We got up early’ish this morning and went to Archery Park, we were the first ones there so didn’t have to queue, we just had a brief lesson on how they work and we were gone.
There were nine targets in all, there were three different distance markers from where to fire based on age, size, ability etc.
Ian, despite having to fire his arrow the farthest, romped it with Marisa coming second. Carolyn came third after realising half way through the course that she could get her best scores by blurring her vision somehow, this seemed quite odd at the time as the rest of us were of the opinion that it was probably better not to mention safer to have a good view of what you are aiming at, but it worked for her so who are we to argue, Fraser came forth, while Kristian trailed along in fifth place.
You will notice that we didn’t say Kristian came last, Ian has decided that he wants to have a go at being politically correct for fear of injuring his sons feelings and getting sued at a later date, so we say he came fifth even if technically he did come last.
After the Archery we went home, made the kids a picnic and headed for the beach, we picked up the Sunday papers on the way and the kids had their picnic on the beach while we sat in the afternoon sun drinking coffee, reading and eating Nachos.
In the evening we tried to watch a Sylvester Stallone film with the kids, Cliffhanger, we had seen it before and couldn’t remember anything that could be inappropriate for the kids.
We must just get acclimatised to the swearing and violence that goes on in films because this film had loads of it right from the start, needless to say it got switched off and the kids had to watch some of the old BBC sitcoms that they show on Foxtel instead.
One of Ians aunts rang tonight, it would appear that in the UK now, you can ring Australia for nothing, the only criteria being that the call doesn’t last more than an hour, so Ian was chatting to her for just under an hour as she was timing it.
While that was going on Carolyn was chatting to Doreen from over the road, it would appear that sadly, their next door neighbours son has died.
Ian then watched Arsenal stuff Middlesborough 2 – 0 in the English Premier League, now that is what we got Foxtel for and Ian is looking forward to next season already.
Anzac Day 2009
Saturday 25th April 2009
This morning we went to Dunsborough Anzac Day Service, the kids Scout Troop were taking part in the parade and laying of a wreath so we thought we had better be there and show our respects.
Dunsborough is quite a small community so the parade was not that large, but they did have a wide cross section of the community being represented from Scouts and Schools to the Red Cross, ex Servicemen and Veterans of many wars gone by.
It was quite an emotional experience to see our kids lined up and marching with these other groups while the crowds on the sidewalk applauded them as they passed by, it was only a short march but a significant one and if it has made our kids, who let’s face it have been pretty sheltered from the affects of war, think about the effort and sacrifice that those people put in to ensure that they have the cushy life they have now, then it will be a march well done and will hopefully make them think twice about war in the future.
After the march we all went into a hall where a commemoration service was held, the hall was overflowing with people to the point where they are now looking at other venues for future years services so that all who want to attend can be accommodated comfortably.
The service took the best part of an hour with hymns and prayers along with the usual speeches and laying of the wreaths, there was no war memorial that people gathered round as this is a fairly new community, just a flag on a flag pole that had been wedged inside the centre of a wheel rim, it was basic, it was heartfelt and it was emotional.
After the service we drove in to Dunsborough for a coffee and a bite to eat, the town was really busy, presumably loads of tourists about as it is a long weekend.
We decided to stop at the Yallingup Coffee Roasting Company, a small Café with seating outside, the only problem being that they only do coffee and cake and don’t do rolls or pies which was what we were really after.
We stopped there anyway as we had never been there before and if we still felt hungry afterwards, it was a nice day, we could go for a stroll and get something else to eat elsewhere.
The kids had Smoothies which was easy, Carolyn had her usual Black Coffee, Ian fancied a pot of Tea. One of their Coffee Machines had broken down so there would be a delay, for some reason because the coffee machine had broken down we could only have our tea and coffee in take away cups as opposed to Tea Pots and Coffee Cups and it would take about twenty minutes to serve it.
We agreed to the wait and the paper cups, after all we hadn’t been here before so we should give them a chance and it had already taken fifteen minutes for the kids to work out what they wanted.
When it arrived, the Cakes and Biscuits were ok, the kids Smoothies were ok, Carolyn doesn’t mind drinking out of Take Away cups so that was ok, but Ians Tea was rank, not just because it was in a paper cup although that didn’t help, it would have been rank if it was in a Tea Pot.
We probably won’t bother going there again and definitely not for Tea, more because on the food side of things than anything as we don’t tend to go out just for coffee unless we are overlooking the sea, here it only overlooks a car park, so is not very interesting.
From there we drove back towards Busselton and popped into Archery Park to see if we could have a go with the Bow and Arrows, it was very busy and there was going to be a fair wait before we could have a go, so we decided to leave it until tomorrow morning when we will try again, weather permitting.
From there we popped into our local Brewery, Occy’s Brewery, we have been living here over a year now and still not tried it out. We bought two halves of beer, one fairly strong and the other, the weakest in their range.
The weaker beer was the one that we both liked so we didn’t get to finish the stronger one, it’s a shame we didn’t try it earlier in the summer because it would have been a pleasant place to spend an afternoon when the sun is shining. There is ample room for kids to play and they have live music on at the weekend, food is available, albeit served by the business next door but it looked good.
The Sunday Sesh is very popular in this part of WA, families drive out to Breweries and Wineries, eat and drink all afternoon, then all jump in their cars and drive home before it gets dark so that they can sleep off their hangovers.
The only time we have seen roadblocks or people being breath tested since we have been here has been on a Sunday afternoon, but as most people don’t seem to worry too much about losing their licence over here it’s not a problem, they just carry on driving anyway because if they didn’t, all the breweries and wineries would close down due to lack of patronage and their would be mass unemployment. People just don’t realise that if it wasn’t for these persistent drink drivers the economy would be more shot to pieces than it is already.
After our half of beer we drove home, picked up the kids buckets and spades and went down to the foreshore where the kids played while we sat drinking coffee and reading the papers, in an ideal world we would be able to do this part of the day every day.
In the evening we watched a family film, Cars, which surprisingly enough is about cars, no violence, no swearing, just a good animated fun film about a racing car.
This morning we went to Dunsborough Anzac Day Service, the kids Scout Troop were taking part in the parade and laying of a wreath so we thought we had better be there and show our respects.
Dunsborough is quite a small community so the parade was not that large, but they did have a wide cross section of the community being represented from Scouts and Schools to the Red Cross, ex Servicemen and Veterans of many wars gone by.
It was quite an emotional experience to see our kids lined up and marching with these other groups while the crowds on the sidewalk applauded them as they passed by, it was only a short march but a significant one and if it has made our kids, who let’s face it have been pretty sheltered from the affects of war, think about the effort and sacrifice that those people put in to ensure that they have the cushy life they have now, then it will be a march well done and will hopefully make them think twice about war in the future.
After the march we all went into a hall where a commemoration service was held, the hall was overflowing with people to the point where they are now looking at other venues for future years services so that all who want to attend can be accommodated comfortably.
The service took the best part of an hour with hymns and prayers along with the usual speeches and laying of the wreaths, there was no war memorial that people gathered round as this is a fairly new community, just a flag on a flag pole that had been wedged inside the centre of a wheel rim, it was basic, it was heartfelt and it was emotional.
After the service we drove in to Dunsborough for a coffee and a bite to eat, the town was really busy, presumably loads of tourists about as it is a long weekend.
We decided to stop at the Yallingup Coffee Roasting Company, a small Café with seating outside, the only problem being that they only do coffee and cake and don’t do rolls or pies which was what we were really after.
We stopped there anyway as we had never been there before and if we still felt hungry afterwards, it was a nice day, we could go for a stroll and get something else to eat elsewhere.
The kids had Smoothies which was easy, Carolyn had her usual Black Coffee, Ian fancied a pot of Tea. One of their Coffee Machines had broken down so there would be a delay, for some reason because the coffee machine had broken down we could only have our tea and coffee in take away cups as opposed to Tea Pots and Coffee Cups and it would take about twenty minutes to serve it.
We agreed to the wait and the paper cups, after all we hadn’t been here before so we should give them a chance and it had already taken fifteen minutes for the kids to work out what they wanted.
When it arrived, the Cakes and Biscuits were ok, the kids Smoothies were ok, Carolyn doesn’t mind drinking out of Take Away cups so that was ok, but Ians Tea was rank, not just because it was in a paper cup although that didn’t help, it would have been rank if it was in a Tea Pot.
We probably won’t bother going there again and definitely not for Tea, more because on the food side of things than anything as we don’t tend to go out just for coffee unless we are overlooking the sea, here it only overlooks a car park, so is not very interesting.
From there we drove back towards Busselton and popped into Archery Park to see if we could have a go with the Bow and Arrows, it was very busy and there was going to be a fair wait before we could have a go, so we decided to leave it until tomorrow morning when we will try again, weather permitting.
From there we popped into our local Brewery, Occy’s Brewery, we have been living here over a year now and still not tried it out. We bought two halves of beer, one fairly strong and the other, the weakest in their range.
The weaker beer was the one that we both liked so we didn’t get to finish the stronger one, it’s a shame we didn’t try it earlier in the summer because it would have been a pleasant place to spend an afternoon when the sun is shining. There is ample room for kids to play and they have live music on at the weekend, food is available, albeit served by the business next door but it looked good.
The Sunday Sesh is very popular in this part of WA, families drive out to Breweries and Wineries, eat and drink all afternoon, then all jump in their cars and drive home before it gets dark so that they can sleep off their hangovers.
The only time we have seen roadblocks or people being breath tested since we have been here has been on a Sunday afternoon, but as most people don’t seem to worry too much about losing their licence over here it’s not a problem, they just carry on driving anyway because if they didn’t, all the breweries and wineries would close down due to lack of patronage and their would be mass unemployment. People just don’t realise that if it wasn’t for these persistent drink drivers the economy would be more shot to pieces than it is already.
After our half of beer we drove home, picked up the kids buckets and spades and went down to the foreshore where the kids played while we sat drinking coffee and reading the papers, in an ideal world we would be able to do this part of the day every day.
In the evening we watched a family film, Cars, which surprisingly enough is about cars, no violence, no swearing, just a good animated fun film about a racing car.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
5 Fruit and 2 Veg
Thursday 3rd April 2008
Ian decided it would be a good idea to get up at 5.15am today to watch the Champions League between Arsenal and Liverpool, it wasn’t live but it was only about an hour after the game finished and early enough not to know the result. They did show the game live but that started at 2.45am which was a bit too early and obviously the TV Company think so too which is why they show it again so soon after the final whistle, and a 5.45am showing means that people can watch it before going to work.
It was Kristian’s class assembly at school today so we had to be in school by 8.30am, the theme was healthy eating and the whole class had made Paper T shirts with pictures of Fruit and Veg on them and had learned a song about eating 5 Fruit and 2 Veg which was sung to the tune of Mambo number 5. because we were early we asked if there was anything we could do to help, Ian was in charge of making sure every child had a photo taken of them wearing their T shirt that would go in with their work record while Carolyn was in charge of the register.
The show was quite good considering that this is a new class of mixed ages and that they have only been together for a few weeks. Next week on Friday 11th they are having an assembly outside under the flag to commemorate Anzac Day, it is not the right date for it but because Anzac Day is while the children are on holiday this was the closest they could get. We will be trying to get to that one but we think our removal is arriving on that day in which case we won’t be able to.
After assembly we went to the Café to check our emails and were informed by the owners that the bank that we are going to use when we take over the Café, the bank who assured us that everything would be sent to the branch until we took over, the bank who after the last letter to us from them that arrived at the Café, assured us that nothing like this could happen again, the bank who double checked and were assured by their Merchant Department (zip zap Machine) while we were standing in the branch that they would be sending our card machine to the branch and not the Café, had sent the card machine to the Café and the courier, how could have been anybody, wanted to install it. The owners sent it back unfortunately; it would have been handy to get a couple of weeks takings in the bank before we took over, although they probably do not feel the same.
We checked out a website called Wageline while we were there and the awards and benefits that staff are entitled to are a minefield just waiting to blow up in an employers face, the pay rates are high, the levels of benefits are high, if a member of staff works on a Saturday or Sunday even if they are normal working days they get enhanced rates of pay, if they take a holiday you have to pay them their basic pay plus an extra 17½ per cent for a bit of extra spending money. If a waitress helps in the kitchen for 10 minutes and the kitchen duty she is doing is normally on a higher pay award, you have to pay her 10 minutes on the higher pay award, it’s no wonder companies only employ casual staff, to employ permanent staff could cripple you.
So after checking emails and meeting a couple of staff and suppliers that we had not met before, we went to the bank. When we spoke to the girl who had set up our business account for us she was not happy and said that she had rung them 3 times to make sure they knew what to do with the machine, we just laughed it off and gave her the couriers card so that she could get it delivered to the bank which she did. On the bright side at least we know we have a card machine ready to start trading on the day we move in.
We then went to another bank and transferred the money for the house into the settlement agents account and then went shopping for some crockery and glasses, because we had use of everything in the pub back in the UK we didn’t bother buying any day to day crockery. While we were shopping we got a call from the settlement agent asking us to pop in and see him, which we did. The settlement agents for the sellers of the house are saying that they do not want to pay for the gas and electric etc to be repaired in the house and that because it is a deceased estate, as a matter of course they do not warrant that anything is in good or working order. Unfortunately for them somebody forgot to tell the Trustees for the estate because when we put these things down as special conditions they signed to agree them. It would appear that the settlement agent is willing to pay for parts but not for labour, suggesting that we could do it ourselves. On TV we are constantly bombarded by adverts put out by the Government showing people getting electrocuted, burned or gassed so if it comes to it we don’t think their argument will stand up in court and have told our settlement agent that we are insisting on them paying. The fact that they have brought this up at the last minute suggests that they are trying to call our bluff and means that we won’t get in tomorrow, but that is not going to happen now anyway because they have been slow in sending some paperwork back so we are not going to be bullied by them and will sit it out until they come to the party with a sensible solution.
In the afternoon when we picked the kids up from school we took them to the beach where they had a good swim for an hour or so, there was a red powdery sort of stuff floating in the water, somebody told us it was something to do with a certain type of seaweed and nobody apart from us was making a fuss about it so we are assuming that it is not going to do us any harm.
Ian decided it would be a good idea to get up at 5.15am today to watch the Champions League between Arsenal and Liverpool, it wasn’t live but it was only about an hour after the game finished and early enough not to know the result. They did show the game live but that started at 2.45am which was a bit too early and obviously the TV Company think so too which is why they show it again so soon after the final whistle, and a 5.45am showing means that people can watch it before going to work.
It was Kristian’s class assembly at school today so we had to be in school by 8.30am, the theme was healthy eating and the whole class had made Paper T shirts with pictures of Fruit and Veg on them and had learned a song about eating 5 Fruit and 2 Veg which was sung to the tune of Mambo number 5. because we were early we asked if there was anything we could do to help, Ian was in charge of making sure every child had a photo taken of them wearing their T shirt that would go in with their work record while Carolyn was in charge of the register.
The show was quite good considering that this is a new class of mixed ages and that they have only been together for a few weeks. Next week on Friday 11th they are having an assembly outside under the flag to commemorate Anzac Day, it is not the right date for it but because Anzac Day is while the children are on holiday this was the closest they could get. We will be trying to get to that one but we think our removal is arriving on that day in which case we won’t be able to.
After assembly we went to the Café to check our emails and were informed by the owners that the bank that we are going to use when we take over the Café, the bank who assured us that everything would be sent to the branch until we took over, the bank who after the last letter to us from them that arrived at the Café, assured us that nothing like this could happen again, the bank who double checked and were assured by their Merchant Department (zip zap Machine) while we were standing in the branch that they would be sending our card machine to the branch and not the Café, had sent the card machine to the Café and the courier, how could have been anybody, wanted to install it. The owners sent it back unfortunately; it would have been handy to get a couple of weeks takings in the bank before we took over, although they probably do not feel the same.
We checked out a website called Wageline while we were there and the awards and benefits that staff are entitled to are a minefield just waiting to blow up in an employers face, the pay rates are high, the levels of benefits are high, if a member of staff works on a Saturday or Sunday even if they are normal working days they get enhanced rates of pay, if they take a holiday you have to pay them their basic pay plus an extra 17½ per cent for a bit of extra spending money. If a waitress helps in the kitchen for 10 minutes and the kitchen duty she is doing is normally on a higher pay award, you have to pay her 10 minutes on the higher pay award, it’s no wonder companies only employ casual staff, to employ permanent staff could cripple you.
So after checking emails and meeting a couple of staff and suppliers that we had not met before, we went to the bank. When we spoke to the girl who had set up our business account for us she was not happy and said that she had rung them 3 times to make sure they knew what to do with the machine, we just laughed it off and gave her the couriers card so that she could get it delivered to the bank which she did. On the bright side at least we know we have a card machine ready to start trading on the day we move in.
We then went to another bank and transferred the money for the house into the settlement agents account and then went shopping for some crockery and glasses, because we had use of everything in the pub back in the UK we didn’t bother buying any day to day crockery. While we were shopping we got a call from the settlement agent asking us to pop in and see him, which we did. The settlement agents for the sellers of the house are saying that they do not want to pay for the gas and electric etc to be repaired in the house and that because it is a deceased estate, as a matter of course they do not warrant that anything is in good or working order. Unfortunately for them somebody forgot to tell the Trustees for the estate because when we put these things down as special conditions they signed to agree them. It would appear that the settlement agent is willing to pay for parts but not for labour, suggesting that we could do it ourselves. On TV we are constantly bombarded by adverts put out by the Government showing people getting electrocuted, burned or gassed so if it comes to it we don’t think their argument will stand up in court and have told our settlement agent that we are insisting on them paying. The fact that they have brought this up at the last minute suggests that they are trying to call our bluff and means that we won’t get in tomorrow, but that is not going to happen now anyway because they have been slow in sending some paperwork back so we are not going to be bullied by them and will sit it out until they come to the party with a sensible solution.
In the afternoon when we picked the kids up from school we took them to the beach where they had a good swim for an hour or so, there was a red powdery sort of stuff floating in the water, somebody told us it was something to do with a certain type of seaweed and nobody apart from us was making a fuss about it so we are assuming that it is not going to do us any harm.
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