Christmas Day 2009

Friday 25th December 2009

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

El Gringo's

Friday 22nd May 2009
The kids had a Free Dress Day today, so that cost us a few bob, the money this time is to raise funds for a school missionary trip to Russia so they also had Russian food at lunchtime, that is to say it was the West Australian version of Russian food, they all seemed to like it.
There was still plenty of wind around today although not quite as much rain which was good, the shopping centre had a few more leaks today but they were small and didn’t affect us.
The funny thing about the leaks today was, they were coming out of the Air Conditioning Ducts, quite ironic really after yesterday. They were only minor and would probably stop when the wind changed direction, so they didn’t get rung through to the centre management.
It was a busy lunch time today, we had a new part time girl start today to cover lunch and late afternoons so she got a busy start, the rest of the day was pretty quiet really.
In the evening the kids went to Freaky Friday and we went to the local Mexican Restaurant, it has taken us over a year to get round to going there because it looks really naff and whoever drew up their take away menu needs shooting, writing about Bum Burners in a menu would not, we envisage, be found to be an attraction to most punters.
With nervous anticipation we entered ”El Gringo’s”, the décor leaves a bit to be desired, the menu is short and sweet and the waitresses are very loud and not very good at pronouncing Mexican dishes in a Mexican accent, but they are very good at doing it in a West Australian accent, so that’s alright.
The food was very good, Ian had Fajitas (Fah Hee Tars), they were tasty but needed just an extra couple of chicken strips to satisfactorily fill the last Tortilla.
Carolyn had an Enchilada, a Tortilla wrapped round whatever filling you choose, covered with Cheese and Salsa and baked in the oven, it was served with Rice and Frijole (mashed up kidney beans), the Frijole was probably the worst part of the meal but is obviously Busseltons version of Re-Fried Beans.
We would recommend it, but nobody asked us about it, we will however be going back there again and the kids have announced that they want to go to, maybe next time someone poos in the pool.

Just when you thought it was safe in the Water, Again

Friday 8th May 2009
It was fairly quiet again today at the Café, we had one member of staff call in sick this morning so that did us a favour, otherwise it would have been one extra person getting paid for not doing a lot.
Freaky Friday was abandoned again tonight due to contamination in the pool, this is the second week on the trot that this has happened
We can only assume that they have changed the pool timetable and have now scheduled in a Swimming for the incontinent class on a Friday afternoon, whatever it is we are hoping they sort it out soon.
Instead of Freaky Friday, the kids and Carolyn watched a film called The Waterhorse which they obviously found quite entertaining by the noise coming from the family room, Ian decided to work instead.