To the dogs!

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.

Sorry!

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

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

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.

Wot No Ice Cream

Monday 19th October 2009
Carolyn managed to sell the five baby bunnies this morning, so we are back down to 13 bunnies, 2 puppies and a cat. We haven’t yet sold the kids.
The Café was fairly quiet today which gave us a chance to catch up with a little bit of the batch cooking, so that we can restock the shelves.
There was no Cubs on again tonight for Kristian, so Ian took all the kids for a bike ride along the cycle path to Siesta Park.
Shock, Horror, when they got there the garage was closed so they couldn’t get an ice cream, the only reason they go on these rides with Ian is because the get an ice cream for doing it, so the thought of having done the ride and not got an ice cream was something they couldn’t bear to think about.
Fortunately there is another shop about half way back where they could get an ice cream, all they had to do was find it as it wasn’t on the cycle path and it was in an area where they didn’t know where the roads went.
They found the shop in the end and after being forced to eat their ice cream quickly because it was getting dark, rode back as quick as they could because they had no lights, if they had voted for daylight saving it would have still been light and they could have ridden back at their leisure.
When they got home, Ian fired up the Barbie and cooked up a load of sausages that we had got from the supermarket, they were pretty crap, like most of the sausages over here so we won’t bother getting them again.
How can a country with such good meat make such crap sausages?

Another Eight Bunnies

Sunday 18th October 2009
We got up at a reasonable hour this morning, only to find that one of the bunnies has had another eight babies, we thought that we had seen the last of them but this rabbit when out for a walk one day a few weeks ago, was ambushed by one of the male bunnies who had managed to escape, we thought we had caught him before he could do anything, but obviously not.
We went to the market down by the foreshore while the kids went to the beach to play, then while we had a coffee, they went for a swim in the sea.
On the way home we stopped off at the pet shop to see how many baby bunnies they had and they only have one at the moment, Carolyn is going to take our five babies who are now five weeks old to the pet shop tomorrow.
After a bit of lunch, we loaded up the car with Kayak, Surfboard etc and headed for Meelup, there were quite a few people there although not many swimming.
We went for a swim and it was a bit chilly, but once you got used to it, it was quite pleasant, not that Carolyn waited long enough to find out, she dunked herself for about thirty seconds before deciding that laying in the sun was much more her forte.
After a long day in the sun we were all a bit tired so we had a light tea, spoilt to a certain degree by some crap Pate that we had bought from the supermarket as a treat, the only person that was treated was the owner of the Pate firm and that won’t happen again.
Australia, or at least the WA part of it, must be the worst place on the planet for Pate, I don’t mean the worst place for a Pate to live, I mean, for a person who enjoys pate to find one that isn’t covered with all sorts of stuff other than meat to hide the taste, or to find one that doesn’t have the texture of the cheapest cat food you could possibly imagine, after it has been eaten and then thrown up by the cat, then eaten and thrown up by the dog.
The Pate in question is called Premium Tasmanian Pate and it is dire, I wouldn’t even recommend someone try it to see how bad it is, the thought of somebody making a profit out of this garbage makes me mad, these people should go somewhere in the world where they know how to make the product properly, go on a cookery course in said country and learn to make it properly, before inflicting their junk on the human race.
We had an early night again, how boring is that?

Beach Ball

Saturday 17th October 2009
The Café was quiet today, we expected it really, Margaret River Show was on and the temperature was due to hit the 30’s for the first time this spring, so we didn’t expect to see too many people inside.
Carolyn and the kids took the puppies to the vet to get their second jabs, they were very well behaved, so were the puppies.
The puppies have doubled in weight since we got them about a month ago, they now weigh close on 10kg, so if the keep doing that for their first year, they will weigh approximately two metric tonnes each on their first birthday, now that would call for a big cake.
We went for a walk along the beach this evening and stopped off at Stilts, where the owner took another beer off line so that he could put Ians favourite on, just to stop him moaning.
In truth we wouldn’t have stopped if he hadn’t done it, so we felt obliged to have two pints rather than the one we were going to have, before going up to the Broadwater Food hall for a quick nosh and then back home for what was going to be an early night.
Instead of the early night we decided to watch the football, Arsenal v Birmingham, a bit of a walkover really, but the highlight was watching Sunderland score against Liverpool.
Now how ironic is this? A Beach Ball has been thrown onto the pitch and is bouncing around in the Liverpool goalmouth, Darren Bent, not exactly the best striker in the league, took a speculative shot that the Liverpool keeper had covered all the way.
The Football hits the Beach Ball causing the Football to change direction, leaving the goalkeeper totally helpless as the Football ended up in the net.
Outrageous you might think, the Beach Ball interfered with play and gave Sunderland an unfair advantage.
Then you watch it again in slow motion, and just as the Football is about to hit the Beach Ball you see the Liverpool Crest, Large as Life, looking straight at the camera and it is printed on the Beach Ball.
A Liverpool supporter, in his wisdom, for want of a better way of putting it, has thrown the Beach Ball onto the pitch and his team have lost the game because of it, they must have given him a right good hiding on the way home, as for Ian, he laughed himself to sleep.

Jungle Bungle Closed

Monday 12th October 2009
Ian and Carolyn are full of aches and pains, we slept pretty soundly but we are putting that down to exhaustion and if it’s right what people say about the aches being worse two days later, then god help us tomorrow.
The Café was quiet to start off with today, but by mid morning it was pretty busy and Carolyn, who we had hoped wouldn’t have to work, had been brought into play and spent the entire lunchtime and beyond working and barely got out in time to pick up some bunny food from the Feed Merchant before he closed.
Now that’s something we didn’t do in England, go to a Feed Merchant, only farmers and posh people who own horses go to Feed Merchants, the rest of us mere mortals used to get it from Pets at Home, a bit like Bunnings for pets at home, or the supermarket.
As Carolyn was coming into work and it was the last day of the school holidays, we decided to let the kids go and play in Jungle Bungle, the owners of Jungle Bungle had other ideas and turned them away because they weren’t opening today now that is pretty much Busselton Business in a nutshell, prime position on the seafront and still plenty of people wandering round, but they might not want to come in and play so we won’t bother opening.
So the kids came to the Café and after feeding their faces, went to the library to read.

We had another early night tonight, the aches and pains have not been getting any better and we are not looking forward to facing them again tomorrow.

Lightweights

Saturday 3rd October 2009
It was a quiet day in the Café today, even after having to clean the fryers we were able to be done and home by about half past three.
Having got home early and with no kids in tow, we decided to head out to Stilts as it used to be called, now it is called Broadwater Beach Bar and Restaurant or something like that.
We were going to make an evening of it and maybe even have a meal there just to check it out, but we were so tired that we were having trouble getting past two drinks and feared that we might fall asleep at the bar.
After leaving the bar, we walked up to Broadwater food hall on the way home, Carolyn had decanted the half a bottle of wine that she had left from the bar into two takeaway coffee cups so as not to look too much like an alky and drank it with our meal from Ismails, an Halal type food place, the food was good if a bit spicy, but gave us the energy to walk home.
After feeding and kicking out the puppies for half an hour we went to bed, what a waste of a good party opportunity, finish work early, no kids to look after and we have an early night, what a couple of lightweights.

Chaos reigns Supreme

Tuesday 29th September 2009
Sods law, a key member of staff down and we get absolutely slaughtered at the Café, the weather has been bad so the only places for the tourists to go are indoors and our Café is indoors.
We can’t knock it because that’s what we have the business for, but why are the busy days always when you don’t have a full compliment of regular staff to call on, staff that not only know what to do themselves but know what the other staff are doing as well.
Take out a regular and replace them with a couple of part timers and you’d think that none of the staff had ever worked there before, because something doesn’t happen or is in the wrong place at the wrong time, or indeed in the right place at the wrong time, everything goes to pieces and chaos reigns supreme.
We managed to get through it though without Ian killing anyone which was good, although Carolyn was a bit concerned about the puppies because they should have been fed an hour before she managed to get out of the Café.
Because the Café was so busy today, none of the baking that was due to be done had been done, so Ian ended up working until 10pm tonight baking and preparing food for tomorrow and was a tad tired at the end of it.

Stirling Ranges

Monday 28th September 2009
The puppies woke us up early this morning, now that is a really good reason to have daylight saving, if we gave all the residents of WA a puppy which woke the house up at dawn, they’d soon vote daylight saving back in so that we could have dawn a bit later.
Today is a public holiday but we had to get up early anyway, Fraser and Marisa are going on Scout Camp to the Stirling Ranges and we had to drop them off at the Scout hut at 9.30am, they still hadn’t left by 10am so we left them to it and went to pick up one of Kristians mates who we have arranged for him to see for the day.
When we got home we got stuck into some gardening, we have been putting it off all winter, too cold, too windy, too rainy, can’t be bothered, we now we have to be bothered because the grass is getting so long we aren’t sure if our next door neighbours still have a garden fence and if they haven’t we don’t want the puppies to escape.
We did a fair amount of heavy digging but soon got fed up with that, so we went down to the jetty for a coffee while Kristian and his mate hurtled around on their scooters.
After dropping Kristians mate home we went to the Café to do a few bits there before going home and having pizza in front of the telly while watching Spiderman with Kristian.

Poo on a Grand Scale

Friday 25th September 2009
Carolyn has managed to fill the equivalent of three wheelie bins full of puppy poo and pee covered newspaper this week, it’s just as well half of our neighbours are grey nomads who haven’t come back from the sun yet, otherwise they would have nowhere to put their rubbish.
The Café was mobbed today, from about 9am to 2.30pm it was just flat out and was probably our best day since last Christmas holidays, saying that, it died quite dramatically in the afternoon and we closed early.
This evening Fraser went Bowling in Bunbury with his best mate whose birthday it was earlier in the week, the other two went to Freaky Friday as usual. We had to stay up till 10pm waiting for him to come home so we could go to bed. Argghh to teenagers and when can he learn to drive please.

Top 20%

Tuesday 22nd September 2009
The Café was quiet again this morning, but we had a busy lunchtime and that carried on into the afternoon which was good, perhaps our persistence in staying open later in the day is starting to pay dividends.
Carolyn went to assembly at the school today, there were actually two assemblies one for the primary and one for the senior schools.
In the assemblies they were giving out awards for NAPLAN results, similar to SATS in the UK, and Kristian received one which was absolutely brilliant as they are only given out to the top 20% in the country. Kristian and his best mate who also got one, are convinced that they got them for being in the top 20 in the country despite the fact that 40 children in the school got one, they probably didn’t take the maths results into account.
The puppies are really starting to settle in now, they are managing to stay quiet for virtually eight hours overnight and are confident enough in their surroundings now to pee and poo wherever they want apart from their bed, this makes for a lovely assault course for Ian to negotiate while he is still half asleep first thing in the morning.

Punching Above His Weight

Monday 21st September 2009
It was very quiet in the Café for most of the day, we did get hammered unexpectedly for about an hour at lunchtime though which made the day look reasonable.
Carolyn managed to get rid of another two baby bunnies at the pet shop today which was a bit of a relief, we thought that because the shop had a glut of them all of a sudden we might get lumbered with keeping them because they get too big.
Carolyn went to school this evening with the kids, it was a parent teacher evening where we get a chance to meet the teachers find out how good our kids really are.
As it turns out, all three kids are doing really well with the younger two being good allrounders, while Fraser has his specialist subjects and is punching well above his weight in Science and Maths, just by coincidence it is the same teacher for both subjects, so whether it’s the subjects that interest him, which they do, or the teachers ability which is the key factor in his achievement, we shall have to wait and see.

Pooing and Weeing.. I can't believe we have stooped to titles like this!

Sunday 20th September 2009
We woke up at a reasonable hour this morning and went for breakfast in Dunsborough, it was just another part of Carolyns birthday celebrations, she does like to make it last as long as possible.
After breakfast we went for a walk round town and down to the waterfront, it was very windy and raining quite a bit but we seemed to be under cover whenever the rain came.
We couldn’t stay out all day because the puppies needed feeding and pooing and weeing and cleaning up after, but we did stop for an ice cream at Simmo’s before heading home.
It was cold, windy and rainy all afternoon, so after cleaning out the rabbits, dogs and cat, we sat and watched the film Storm Seekers with Darryl Hannah, she didn’t half look rough in it, her face looked all bloated like that of an alcoholic and it wasn’t the best bit of acting we’d ever seen, but that probably explains why we had never heard of it before.
The kids said that they enjoyed it, but we suspect that it was the fact that they were allowed to eat yesterday’s leftover pizza in front of the telly that really impressed them.
In the evening after the kids had gone to bed, we watched episodes of Life on Mars and Torchwood, we don’t know if we are just watching a bad batch of Torchwood episodes or whether they are normally like this, but the acting, storylines and script are so naff that it has almost become an addiction, watching them to see how bad they can really get.

English Jelly Babies

Saturday 19th September 2009
Carolyns birthday and she had to work, she didn’t have to work until 10am mind and she finished at 1pm, so it wasn’t so hard really.
Fliss and Lukery her lover took the kids to the cinema this morning, they went to see the film UP, we reckon Lukery loves these cartoon films but is a bit too macho to go on his own and Fliss is just a big kid herself, so when a film like this comes along taking the kids is the perfect alibi.
Ian was hoping to finish work early today, but with staff dragging their heels as usual it was 4pm by the time he finished everything he had to do.
After work, Ian went shopping for some English Jelly Babies and rabbit scraps at IGA supermarket, Australian Jelly Babies are disgusting, the person who makes the Australian version has obviously never tasted the far superior English version, or maybe he doesn’t really care what they taste like because if they are only eaten by Australians the chances are they will be covered in tomato sauce anyway, so it doesn’t matter what they taste like because they will all be tomato sauce flavour by the time the get eaten.
When Ian got home, Carolyn opened her cards and presents and seemed to like them all, so that was a result.
We went out for dinner at the Vasse tonight, the boys were determined to have a Pizza each despite the fact that we told them they were big, they managed to finish the equivalent of one whole pizza between them, so guess what they’ve got for dinner tomorrow.
Carolyn had a steak with mushrooms stuffed with snails, we haven’t eaten snails since we were back in the UK, so she was in her element and thoroughly enjoyed the meal, she reckons it was the best meal she had eaten in Busselton and let the chef know it.
After dinner we walked up to the Royal Palms (Ship) for a quick drink before catching a taxi home, the floor in the bar was once again filthy and sticky as they had a crowd in to watch the AFL (aerial ping pong) this afternoon and none of the staff could be arsed to mop the floor afterwards despite it being the main bar for a wedding reception in the evening, the management should be ashamed of themselves.
After we got home, Ian watched the real football, Arsenal v Wigan, a mismatch if ever there was one, while Carolyn played on the computer.
The dogs still haven’t got a name although we did sit up last night firing names at each other, Hinge and Bracket, Smith and Jones, Samson (sammy) and Delilah, Anthony (Antoinette) and Cleopatra, George (Georgia) and Mildred and many more, they are Carolyns babies so she is going to have the final decision at some point, the rest of us will just have to wait in nervous anticipation.

Two Dogs

Friday 18th September 2009
Carolyn was supposed to help out with reading at school this morning, but completely forgot about it because Kristian had to go to the Dentist.
Kristian was a brave little soldier at the Dentist, they removed an adult tooth from the back which involved a lot of pulling to and fro, Kristian was screaming, Carolyn was holding him down, there was blood flying all over the place and when Ian phoned Carolyn to ask her to pick something up on the way into work, she put the phone down on him.
Needless to say, Kristian was a tad traumatised after that so spent the day at the Café playing on the computer while we were working.
Just after lunchtime Carolyn got a call saying that she could have the @@@@@@@, so we are now proud parents of two Ridgeback/Retriever puppies who are only young, but one weighs 4kg while the other weighs 3.5kg, we’ll have to start breeding more rabbits so that we have enough food for them.

Carolyn tried to get rid of two more baby bunnies today at the pet shop, but there seems to be a glut of baby boy bunnies at the moment so they don’t want them, we’ll try again after the weekend.
Marisa came back from school camp today, she was absolutely shattered but she had a great time and when she saw the puppies, she burst into tears of joy, which is the sort of thing she does.

School Camp

Tuesday 15th September 2009
We were a different member of staff short today, again we were fairly quiet apart from a mad hour at lunchtime and although it meant that Carolyn had to work when we thought that she was going to have the day off, it did mean we saved on wages and we do like to look on the bright side in difficult situations.
Marisa went off on school camp this morning, a treat for leaving year 6, the end of primary School. She was so excited and really looking forward to it, especially the bits that are going to involve “Pranks”, the school in their wisdom has told the kids that pranks are something to be encouraged on this trip (as long as they are cleared with a member of staff first), they must need their heads tested.
After Carolyn finished work today she went to our Veg suppliers to pick up some bunny Veg, stuff that they were going to throw away, that sort of thing, only to find that someone from a farm has been coming to collect it before she normally gets there.
That would explain why she doesn’t seem to be able to get much lately, so from now on she is going to get there before 2pm, if she remembers.
Kristian had his mate round after school today, Tuesdays after school are the highlights of Kristians week, they are the time when he can chat and play with the same kid that he has been chatting and playing with at school and on the computer all week.
Fraser and Kristian went to Scouts this evening, they were cooking on the camp fire tonight, they now know how to core an apple, stuff it full of marshmallows and chocolate, wrap it in foil and throw it on the fire until cooked.
Apparently the end result is worth all the effort, but they didn’t bring any home for us to try so we’ll have to take their word for it.

A Mother In Law Road

Sunday 13th September 2009
We were a bit late getting up this morning after our overindulgences last night, but it didn’t matter, the kids were happily glued to the telly and hadn’t noticed that we were missing.
Another one of our rabbits has had babies, this one has had five babies, so having got rid of four to the pet shop yesterday, we now have one more than we had yesterday, we reckon our rabbits can do it telepathically, she hasn’t been near a boy rabbit for weeks, or perhaps she/he is a hermaphrodite?
We went to the market at rotary park this morning, there wasn’t much there to speak of and there is a severe shortage of sweet seedless mandarins around at the moment, we did find a stall with Gluten free cakes on it though, so we bought a couple of those to try out in the Café but that was it.
From there we drove out to Capel, where according to a website we found, a market organised by the Lions was taking place, it was nowhere to be seen so we went to a local cheese shop for some free samples and a cup of coffee while we deciding what to do next.
On 29th November Ian intends to cycle from Busselton Jetty to Augusta lighthouse for fun, he has been advised by a cycling enthusiast who has said he will ride as well that the best route is to cycle down a road called Sues Road and on the way back from the cheese shop we were going to pass it, so we decided to take a look, just so that Ian could see what he had let himself in for.
What a dog of a road, as Ian and his old cycling partner from Axbridge would call it, it’s a mother in law road, basically it goes on and on and on. (Not that my Mother ever went on at him, understood? good)
This road was apparently built to service a mine, so it is wide and pretty straight so as to cope with the heavy lorries that would be using it.
It is about 60km in length and appears to be going uphill for most of it, there are trees and shrubs on either side, but nothing else until you are virtually at the end, at a place called Sues Bridge.
Ian is used to doing his longer bike rides on windy undulating roads where you have to concentrate in order to anticipate bends, hills and other obstacles that may appear at short notice, on this road you can see for miles and apart from the long hills which will be a slow hard slog, the rest of it is likely to be a test of endurance, trying to stay focussed on cycling in straight line for a couple of hours.
At least Ian knows what he’s up against now, the road from the end of Sues Road to Augusta is far more interesting so shouldn’t be a problem, assuming that is, that Ian gets off his backside and starts training.
Having driven to Augusta, we stopped for lunch at the Augusta Bakery, a renowned bakery within the area we are led to believe.
We had a cooked meal as opposed to having “Bakery”stuff, so we can’t really comment on the bread, other than Ian reckons that the toast that came with his dinner was probably toasted yesterday.
From Augusta we drove home and when we got there, Ian, Marisa and Kristian went out for a bike ride with one of the kids friends, while Fraser stayed home to do his homework and Carolyn did her girlie bits around the house, you know, washing, ironing, that sort of stuff.

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