The weekend

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

Gullible

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.

Kids go to Perth

Friday 2nd October 2009
Carolyn and the kids set off fairly early this morning to drive to Mandurah where they were going to meet Sharon at the train station, she was going to take them from there up to Perth.
Any systems that might have been in place in the kitchen at the Café fell apart today, staff who do the same things every day went off to help others, while other less experienced staff who should have been the ones helping the experienced ones, were left to fill the gaps left by the experienced staff who had gone off to help the experienced staff, you had to be there, it was a nightmare.
Ian was stuck on the counter making coffee and taking orders for long periods, relying on the experienced staff in the kitchen to do their part and make sure that side of the business runs smoothly and it didn’t work.
People were waiting ages for food, the kitchen staff had forgotten how to prioritise and were concentrating on doing one order at a time instead of knocking out the easy bits while waiting for other stuff to cook, it was only when Carolyn got back from dropping the kids off half way through lunchtime, that she prioritised it all and cleared the backlog within about fifteen minutes, we doubt that we will ever know how much damage had been done to trade before that though.
This evening after work we went for a stroll done to Stilts, it has recently reopened and we just felt the need to get out for an hour.
It is going to be an interesting place to be for a while, the new owners used to work for one of the restaurants in Busselton a few years ago and thought that they could do something with this place.
The menu is fairly small but interesting and reasonably priced, but nobody seems to know what they are doing behind the bar.
The barman, who kept running out the back to be violently ill, would then stick his hand in the ice bucket, pull out some ice and put in the ice crusher, ready for it to go into peoples drinks.
When the owner asked the barman what was wrong with him, the barman said that he had eaten something the previous day that had disagreed with him and that he had been throwing up all day, instead of sending him home, the owner just laughed and we made sure he didn’t serve us.
We went home shortly after that and had an early night.

Cheese and Vegemite Sausage Rolls

Saturday 12th September 2009
Ian was really looking forward to working at the Café today, not!, the thought of working with those Saturday staff, it just makes him even more determined to get his residency/citizenship over here, whatever it takes to get his shotgun licence.
As it happens, it wasn’t as bad as he had anticipated, they all seemed pretty much on the ball today and with the help of one of the girls, Ian reckons that he has made the best Cheese and Vegemite Sausage Rolls, even better than the ones they make at DBC butchers two doors away.
For those of you who have never been to Australia, and Western Australia in particular, they seem to have this predilection for getting some meat and mixing it with cheese, it doesn’t matter what sort of meat it is, they have no shame.
They love anything from Chicken and Cheese Sausages to Steak and Cheese Pies and if you can mix in some Sun dried Tomatoes or Vegemite it will be seen to be a gastronomic delight, then cover it in tomato sauce, the cheaper the better and when you cannot possibly taste anything other than the tomato sauce, you’ve got it about right, Haut Cuisine WA style.
Carolyn flogged four baby bunnies to the pet shop today and found out that the other two that are a week younger are both boys, so we won’t be keeping either of them much to the kids disappointment.
We had a babysitter tonight for the first time in months so went in to Busselton for the evening, we only visited a couple of pubs and stayed out for a couple of hours, but it made a nice change to get out.
The first pub we went to was the Vasse which is a sponsor for the Cinefest which takes place in Busselton every year, they had a French band playing who were pretty good, even if we couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
Then we went to the Royal Palms (Ship) or Ship hole as somebody has described it on one of their posters, they had an open mic event going on, we saw the first two acts, one of whom seemed to have connections with our kids school, but apart from us and a couple of the bands parents we were about the only ones there.
We were home before 10pm so that Ian could watch the football and Carolyn could still stand up, we don’t get out much. Ahem, I do not resemble that remark! Carolyn

Almost a Good Night Out

Saturday 25th July 2009
We managed to finish early at the Café today, it hadn’t been very busy so most of the cleaning had been done before we closed.
After work we decided to go out for a walk and a beer and chose to walk along the beach to Abbey Beach Resort, to see if it had got any better since the last time we went there.
We are going to have to give up expecting something pleasant when it comes to decent customer service, the grumpy git behind the bar must be put there to make sure the bar doesn’t get too busy.
We didn’t stay long and called a taxi to take us into town, the only reasonable option for somewhere to go for a drink in Busselton when it’s cold outside and you have a child in tow is the ship, sorry, Royal Palms as it is now.
We went to the Ship and went into the restaurant reception area where they have a quiet bar, as we walked up to the bar it was like walking through superglue, they had been watching the Dockers v Eagles game in there this afternoon and vast quantities of beer had been spilt.
We did mention it to the staff who said that it needed a mop, we thought no shit Sherlock, so they left it at that until after about an hour we told the manager, who got somebody to mop it up.
We stayed there for a couple of beers and a bite to eat and then called a taxi to take us home, when we asked how long it would be before the taxi arrived, they said it won’t be long.
Ian pointed out to the taxi people that it was very cold outside and that we didn’t want to be out there long, the telephonist said that it should be just a few minutes.
After a while of standing outside Ian rang again and asked how much longer it would be before the taxi arrived, the telephonist said she didn’t know how long so Ian asked her to ask the controller, she replied that she was the controller, had seven cars and two minibuses to look after and couldn’t possibly know when a taxi would be likely to pick up, she also said that we should go back inside the pub until the taxi arrived, but when Ian asked if the taxi driver would come in and find us, she said no.
Ian used to be a taxi controller in London years ago and used to have to look after between 30 and 40 cars on a Friday and Saturday night, so to hear this soppy mare going on about how it isn’t possible to know what seven cars and two minibuses are doing in a two horse town like Busselton is an absolute joke and an example of the standards of customer service that the people of WA accept as the norm.
Eventually, after standing out in the cold with a young child for ages, a taxi arrived and we managed to grab it before someone else who had been waiting for ages.
If it hadn’t been for the grumpy git at Abbey Resort and the wait in the cold with no idea of when our Taxi would arrive, it could have been a good night out.