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.
Showing posts with label Scouts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scouts. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Where were we?
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.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Fishing Trip with Scouts
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!
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!
Monday, February 14, 2011
More picture, still not much typing
Fairly bored looking Scouts at a recent Scout Medallion Presentation.
Yeah, we go to Breweries to drink soft drinks.
Yeah, we go to Breweries to drink soft drinks.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
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
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
Monday, October 25, 2010
Whirlwind
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!
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!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Just dropping in...
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?)
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Tiger Snake
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
People
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.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
AJ2010
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?
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?
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Merry Christmas and Apologies
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
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
Saturday, November 7, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Great Aussie Craftsmanship
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Great Moscow Circus
Saturday 24th October 2009
Isn’t it amazing how kids can get up, get breakfasted, get washed and clothed in minutes when it involves going camping with their mates, we knew the boys wouldn’t be a problem they wake up early every day, but Marisa normally needs two days notice to get out of bed for school and then a further three days to do the rest of it.
The Café was fairly quiet today, but we did enough to beat last year which was our goal.
With the oldest two away at camp for the day, we decided to treat Kristian and take him to the Circus, the Great Moscow Circus is in town and everyone that Ian has spoken to who has been said that it was great, so despite considering ourselves to be not circus people, we took the plunge and bought tickets for this afternoon.
It was great and Kristian loved it, we aren’t the sort of people to be impressed by this sort of thing, but we came out of the show extremely impressed and glad that we had made the effort.
After the Circus Kristian had a pizza before we all had an early night.
Isn’t it amazing how kids can get up, get breakfasted, get washed and clothed in minutes when it involves going camping with their mates, we knew the boys wouldn’t be a problem they wake up early every day, but Marisa normally needs two days notice to get out of bed for school and then a further three days to do the rest of it.
The Café was fairly quiet today, but we did enough to beat last year which was our goal.
With the oldest two away at camp for the day, we decided to treat Kristian and take him to the Circus, the Great Moscow Circus is in town and everyone that Ian has spoken to who has been said that it was great, so despite considering ourselves to be not circus people, we took the plunge and bought tickets for this afternoon.
It was great and Kristian loved it, we aren’t the sort of people to be impressed by this sort of thing, but we came out of the show extremely impressed and glad that we had made the effort.
After the Circus Kristian had a pizza before we all had an early night.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Acting Patrol Leader
Tuesday 20th October 2009
It was another quiet day at the Café today, so a bit more batch cooking and lots of cleaning, but only because the staff enjoy it.
Fraser and Marisa went to Scouts this evening and Fraser was made Acting Patrol Leader for the night, he did a good job of it by all accounts, even when he had to do his little speech bit at the end.
Because the big two were going to Scouts, Ian tried to get Kristian to go for a bike ride but he was having none of it, he’s not one to over exercise himself if he can help it.
It was another quiet day at the Café today, so a bit more batch cooking and lots of cleaning, but only because the staff enjoy it.
Fraser and Marisa went to Scouts this evening and Fraser was made Acting Patrol Leader for the night, he did a good job of it by all accounts, even when he had to do his little speech bit at the end.
Because the big two were going to Scouts, Ian tried to get Kristian to go for a bike ride but he was having none of it, he’s not one to over exercise himself if he can help it.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Kids Go Back
Tuesday 13th October 2009
It was a bit quiet in the café today, it’s probably got something to do with the kids going back to school today and their mothers putting the house back together.
Fraser and Marisa went to Scouts tonight, as they are going camping yet again in a couple of weeks time we had to turn up with assorted forms suitably filled out and yet more money so that they can go.
Unfortunately we’re only getting rid of them for one night and they wouldn’t take Kristian, but we’ll still try to enjoy it.
We had a guy round the house this evening to quote for a small wall to stop the grass from encroaching onto the flower beds, we only want it one block high and it’s 34mtrs long, so not too difficult you would think, but the last quote we had was for about $1,400 which we thought was a tad on the pricey side.
It was a bit quiet in the café today, it’s probably got something to do with the kids going back to school today and their mothers putting the house back together.
Fraser and Marisa went to Scouts tonight, as they are going camping yet again in a couple of weeks time we had to turn up with assorted forms suitably filled out and yet more money so that they can go.
Unfortunately we’re only getting rid of them for one night and they wouldn’t take Kristian, but we’ll still try to enjoy it.
We had a guy round the house this evening to quote for a small wall to stop the grass from encroaching onto the flower beds, we only want it one block high and it’s 34mtrs long, so not too difficult you would think, but the last quote we had was for about $1,400 which we thought was a tad on the pricey side.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Pen and Ink
Thursday 1st October 2009
It was a busy day at the Café again today, not as busy as Tuesday but busy none the less and we are now getting used to working with a slightly disjointed workforce, so it was not quite so stressful.
We had a guy come round the house to give us a quote for laying a row of limestone bricks round the edge of our lawn, we are hoping that if we put a barrier between the lawn and the flower beds we won’t have so much trouble turning the soil over each spring.
Fraser and Marisa came home from camp this evening, they absolutely stank as they were not allowed to have showers where their camp was because soap and shampoo might get into the river system and destroy the ecological ambience of the place.
Instead they have fifteen teenager’ish kids and four adults who haven’t had a wash or bath between them for four days, generating a rather pungent aroma that has probably helped to significantly increase the size of the hole in the Ozone Layer over WA.
The kids had a great time and Kristian is glad that Fraser is back, he’s not so bothered about Marisa being back because she doesn’t play with him.
After long showers and a bite to eat the kids went straight to bed, tomorrow they are going to Perth for a long weekend with Ians sister Sharon and she has apparently got loads of things planned for them.
It was a busy day at the Café again today, not as busy as Tuesday but busy none the less and we are now getting used to working with a slightly disjointed workforce, so it was not quite so stressful.
We had a guy come round the house to give us a quote for laying a row of limestone bricks round the edge of our lawn, we are hoping that if we put a barrier between the lawn and the flower beds we won’t have so much trouble turning the soil over each spring.
Fraser and Marisa came home from camp this evening, they absolutely stank as they were not allowed to have showers where their camp was because soap and shampoo might get into the river system and destroy the ecological ambience of the place.
Instead they have fifteen teenager’ish kids and four adults who haven’t had a wash or bath between them for four days, generating a rather pungent aroma that has probably helped to significantly increase the size of the hole in the Ozone Layer over WA.
The kids had a great time and Kristian is glad that Fraser is back, he’s not so bothered about Marisa being back because she doesn’t play with him.
After long showers and a bite to eat the kids went straight to bed, tomorrow they are going to Perth for a long weekend with Ians sister Sharon and she has apparently got loads of things planned for them.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Girl in the Cafe
Sunday 27th September 2009
Geelong won the final final yesterday, apparently it was a good game played in bad weather conditions, but as we couldn’t see it until four hours after it had finished, we didn’t bother, so don’t know if they were telling the truth or not.
It was a nice day today, the weather was good with a top temperature of 25C and hardly a cloud in the sky.
Ian went out for a bike ride this morning, he left a bit later than he had wanted to but after checking out a map, headed for Dunsborough using the little used country roads.
The problem with reading maps in this country is that everything looks as close as it was in England, it is a concept that we are having great difficulty coming to terms with, and Ian was reminded of that fact today.
When Ian checked out the map before leaving we couldn’t see a road name for the road that would take him into Dunsborough, but we could see that it was the turning after Quindalup Siding so shouldn’t be a problem, Wrong!
When Ian got to Vasse he saw our local Speed Camera operator sitting in his car trying to catch the tourists speeding, so he stopped for a chat.
The Speed Camera Operator had a better map than ours and he proceeded to tell Ian where to turn off onto the unnamed road, now whether Ian got a bit confused by looking at his map and directions and remembering our own map, or he just had a senior moment remains open to debate, but he managed to miss the turnoff totally, not only did he manage to miss that turnoff but he missed the one after as well.
Ian thinks the problem was that the two turnings after Quindalup Siding were both on a minor incline, and as Ian was already feeling knackered by this point he probably had his head down, peddling for all he was worth in a desperate effort to finish before he ran out of steam.
At this point of course he would have done well to take note of that saying “more speed less haste” or was it “more haste less speed”, he can’t remember, but he knows what it means because every adult he ever met when he was a kid seemed to say it to him, but he didn’t and ended going to Dunsborough the long painful way.
Whilst still about 8km outside Dunsborough Ian was running out of water, which was a bit worrying as it is very easy out here to be a hundred miles from anywhere that might be able to let you have some water, combined with the fact that Mobile Phone signals can only be received in town, we don’t have a satellite phone and if we did Ian reckons the satellite wouldn’t fit on the crossbar anyway, and Carolyn didn’t have a clue where he was because neither did Ian, so couldn’t come to his rescue.
Fortunately he found a winery that hadn’t converted all its water to wine yet, he can’t remember the name of it, but it was something Woods and had a girt big wooden troll type statue, work of art, whatever you want to call it, in the driveway.
The lady that served him seemed to think that he must be mad cycling as far as he had but she filled his water bottles there and that was enough to help him finish the journey, he did promise to go back and try some wine next time so that will be another arduous task that we shall have to take on another day.
When Ian got to Dunsborough he chained his bike to a dustbin and parked himself in a chair outside our favourite breakfast café, Artizen, he ordered a coffee and then rang Carolyn to get her to come and pick him up.
After a while Carolyn arrived and we both had coffee and cake, it’s amazing how civilized it feels to relax in the sun with coffee, cake and no kids, so we took our time over it.
When we had finished we got into Carolyns car and drove home following the same route that Ian had ridden, the dustman hadn’t been by the time we left so we put Ians bike in the car as well and brought that back with us.
Ian had ridden about 46km which is about 30 miles, so he’s still got a lot of practice to do before he takes on Busselton to Augusta, but 30 miles was the minimum he used to ride on a training ride in the UK so it’s not a bad starting point after two years of very little riding.
The weather today has been so good that the kids have had their slip and slide game out which involves them sliding down a sheet of wet plastic, they had their water pistols which now resemble bazookas out and between them and their mates that had come round to play, got totally soaked.
The kids had to go to bed early tonight after packing all their gear for camping with the Scouts tomorrow, so it wasn’t very early by the time they went to bed because they couldn’t find anything that they were supposed to take with them, apparently this is a worldwide phenomenon and we aren’t the only people with kids who are so desperate to take part in these events that they can’t find anything that might make the stress and trauma of getting everything together just a little bit easier on the parents, if they could find their socks in the sock drawer it would be a start, pants in the pants drawer that sort of thing, but know they are so wrapped up in taking part they can’t possibly take part in the boring bit at the beginning and no doubt will not want to take part in the boring bit at the end when it all has to be cleaned and accounted for.
After the kids went to bed we watched a film called The Girl in the Café with Bill Nighy, we had never heard of it before but Bill Nighy stuff is normally pretty good and so we risked it for a biscuit.
It won’t go down as one of the best films ever made and it has very political overtones, but for a political film it was very watchable and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
We had a call from one of the staff today, she has got to go back home to see family and won’t be available for a couple of weeks, sods law as it is the school holidays and we are expecting to be busy.
Geelong won the final final yesterday, apparently it was a good game played in bad weather conditions, but as we couldn’t see it until four hours after it had finished, we didn’t bother, so don’t know if they were telling the truth or not.
It was a nice day today, the weather was good with a top temperature of 25C and hardly a cloud in the sky.
Ian went out for a bike ride this morning, he left a bit later than he had wanted to but after checking out a map, headed for Dunsborough using the little used country roads.
The problem with reading maps in this country is that everything looks as close as it was in England, it is a concept that we are having great difficulty coming to terms with, and Ian was reminded of that fact today.
When Ian checked out the map before leaving we couldn’t see a road name for the road that would take him into Dunsborough, but we could see that it was the turning after Quindalup Siding so shouldn’t be a problem, Wrong!
When Ian got to Vasse he saw our local Speed Camera operator sitting in his car trying to catch the tourists speeding, so he stopped for a chat.
The Speed Camera Operator had a better map than ours and he proceeded to tell Ian where to turn off onto the unnamed road, now whether Ian got a bit confused by looking at his map and directions and remembering our own map, or he just had a senior moment remains open to debate, but he managed to miss the turnoff totally, not only did he manage to miss that turnoff but he missed the one after as well.
Ian thinks the problem was that the two turnings after Quindalup Siding were both on a minor incline, and as Ian was already feeling knackered by this point he probably had his head down, peddling for all he was worth in a desperate effort to finish before he ran out of steam.
At this point of course he would have done well to take note of that saying “more speed less haste” or was it “more haste less speed”, he can’t remember, but he knows what it means because every adult he ever met when he was a kid seemed to say it to him, but he didn’t and ended going to Dunsborough the long painful way.
Whilst still about 8km outside Dunsborough Ian was running out of water, which was a bit worrying as it is very easy out here to be a hundred miles from anywhere that might be able to let you have some water, combined with the fact that Mobile Phone signals can only be received in town, we don’t have a satellite phone and if we did Ian reckons the satellite wouldn’t fit on the crossbar anyway, and Carolyn didn’t have a clue where he was because neither did Ian, so couldn’t come to his rescue.
Fortunately he found a winery that hadn’t converted all its water to wine yet, he can’t remember the name of it, but it was something Woods and had a girt big wooden troll type statue, work of art, whatever you want to call it, in the driveway.
The lady that served him seemed to think that he must be mad cycling as far as he had but she filled his water bottles there and that was enough to help him finish the journey, he did promise to go back and try some wine next time so that will be another arduous task that we shall have to take on another day.
When Ian got to Dunsborough he chained his bike to a dustbin and parked himself in a chair outside our favourite breakfast café, Artizen, he ordered a coffee and then rang Carolyn to get her to come and pick him up.
After a while Carolyn arrived and we both had coffee and cake, it’s amazing how civilized it feels to relax in the sun with coffee, cake and no kids, so we took our time over it.
When we had finished we got into Carolyns car and drove home following the same route that Ian had ridden, the dustman hadn’t been by the time we left so we put Ians bike in the car as well and brought that back with us.
Ian had ridden about 46km which is about 30 miles, so he’s still got a lot of practice to do before he takes on Busselton to Augusta, but 30 miles was the minimum he used to ride on a training ride in the UK so it’s not a bad starting point after two years of very little riding.
The weather today has been so good that the kids have had their slip and slide game out which involves them sliding down a sheet of wet plastic, they had their water pistols which now resemble bazookas out and between them and their mates that had come round to play, got totally soaked.
The kids had to go to bed early tonight after packing all their gear for camping with the Scouts tomorrow, so it wasn’t very early by the time they went to bed because they couldn’t find anything that they were supposed to take with them, apparently this is a worldwide phenomenon and we aren’t the only people with kids who are so desperate to take part in these events that they can’t find anything that might make the stress and trauma of getting everything together just a little bit easier on the parents, if they could find their socks in the sock drawer it would be a start, pants in the pants drawer that sort of thing, but know they are so wrapped up in taking part they can’t possibly take part in the boring bit at the beginning and no doubt will not want to take part in the boring bit at the end when it all has to be cleaned and accounted for.
After the kids went to bed we watched a film called The Girl in the Café with Bill Nighy, we had never heard of it before but Bill Nighy stuff is normally pretty good and so we risked it for a biscuit.
It won’t go down as one of the best films ever made and it has very political overtones, but for a political film it was very watchable and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
We had a call from one of the staff today, she has got to go back home to see family and won’t be available for a couple of weeks, sods law as it is the school holidays and we are expecting to be busy.
Friday, September 25, 2009
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.
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.
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