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The Family Bandwagon

Our family is spread out across the country and across the world, and what better way to keep in touch than a collaborative digital journal?

Saturday 29 November 2008

The Piano-ator -- "I'll be Bach!"

(I wanted to call home this morning, but got up too late - don't think you'd appreciate a phone ringing at 10:30pm, just when you're settling in for bed. I'll try again tonight (Sunday morning).)

I have a piano! It is teh awesome.

P291108_12.20.JPGDee got it from an online place for my birthday. It's a Korg SP-250 (stage piano), digital, full size and with that fancy-pant hammer-action that makes it feel like a "real" (analogue?) piano. So. Very. Cool. It arrived yesterday, and it was all I could do not to fob off work and come home for it!

P291108_12.22[01].JPGLast weekend we visited London's "Tin Pan Alley", the music-strip in the West End. We found the piano there, but for about an extra £100 -- no thanks! So for £50 cheaper we got the piano and a stool from DV247. Not bad at all, especially since we had to wait less than a week for it to arrive!

Funny: the evening after visiting Tin Pan Alley we went to a Jazz night at the 100 Club on Oxford Street ... and the pianist had the same piano! Very cool -- before Saturday I'd only seen it in pictures, then over the course of a day I got to play with one (in the store) and listen to someone hammering out frenetic melodies and slammin' chords, as we danced and jived (unlicensed, of course) in any free floor-space.

The weekend before that, you may know, we spent in the Cotswolds -- picturesque English countryside, tawny rough-hewn stone for walls, houses, people (okay, the people weren't made of stone, but wouldn't that be cool!). We stayed in Bourton On The Water; Dee tricked me because I thought we were going to drink bourbon on the water! Still, getting away for a relaxing weekend was probably better. Probably.

The town itself is billed as "the Venice of England", but the locals didn't take too kindly to me tying a bunch of ducks together in the shape of a gondala and paddling along the little waterway that twisted through the township. The ducks didn't mind, and gave me lots of little friendship-bites to show how much they respected and admired me.

The countdown is well and truly on now -- we both can't wait to get home and see everyone, and eat decent fish and chips, and feel sunlight, and drink cold beer.

Nursery update

Hey everybody.. today we bought a change table, finally. Cheryl is going to get a capsule for the car in January, after she finishes work, and then I think we have all the essentials. Somewhere for the baby to sleep, be changed, and a way to get him around :)

We also bought a really cool cot set, with monkeys and turtles and all that good stuff. We put it in the cot just to take some photos to put online.

You can see all the nursery photos here.

Oh, we also had a very kind woman in Toys R Us give us a voucher which saved us about $40 (after the change table had already been reduced by $100 i might add). She was just another shopper there, and being nice.. some people are awesome :)

Saturday we also had the first of our three classes at Flinders Hospital. The second is with a Physio, and covers relaxation techniques and pain relief, and the third is about taking the baby home and looking after it.. Which unfortunately meant that this one was about labour and delivery.

I wont go into specifics.. but rest assured, they did ;)

Still, it was really good, and it's left both Cheryl and I feeling better about the whole thing. There were a few things that I had heard, or read in older books, which were completely wrong. Which is good.

And that's about it from us for this week.

Friday 28 November 2008

christmas is coming

Looking forward to seeing you all soon. Dad's next appointment is next Tuesday in Bendigo where we hope to find out what treatment is recommended and when. He has gained an extra kilo (73) but still has problems with some foods. Otherwise all is well and we're keeping on keeping on. Carolynn called today on her way to confirmation class. Tamara rang since she is organised enough to be buying a present for Carolynn. I'll consult with Dayna when she gets here. Maybe we can buy a joint gift. Lisa said there is a google diary with itinaries for our overseas visitors. I've asked her to send it to me. I'm just sorting what I have to buy for whom. Is it December already? I'm not ready!

Sunday 23 November 2008

Calisthenics


Guess what? I won the Perpetual Trophy at the concert last night. The perpetual is like a great team member award. At the concert Nana, Daria and Poppy won prizes in the raffle (Nana won 2 prizes :P ).
Pictured left 2 right: the club Perpetual trophy and my Perpetual trophy.

Friday 21 November 2008

Confirmation, Calisthenics and School

I thought it was about tie for me to update the bandwagon. Today is my confirmation class. Well this Saturday is my end of year concert. On the 5th of December I have the Fashion Awards and then on the 7th I get confirmed. I also have the last of my exams next week between Monday and Wednesday.

Sunday 16 November 2008

Our weekend

This weekend I surprised Damien with a stay at a Bed &Breakfast in a little town called Macclesfield. I thought it would be nice to get away from baby preparations, house work and the temptation for Damien to do any work on the computer. I also wanted to have at least one more weekend away together before the baby arrives (10 weeks to go!). It was a bit difficult to keep it a total secret... especially on Saturday when I asked which pyjamas he'd like to take on our "mystery trip" :)

The B&B was a nice little studio attached to a larger house, all set on a huge country property complete with two dogs, two alpacas and a sheep. The owners had set the studio up beautifully and had left for us plenty of breakfast provisions as well as lots of yummy snacks (chocolate, biscuits... yum!). We went for a little walk in the afternoon, and then went out for dinner at traditional English-style pub, The Three Brother's Arms. Once again, yum!! The food was really nice, and the pub itself was really nicely decorated. It even had a well in it!
This morning we did a bit of lazing around before heading off. It was so nice to wake up and feel like we were on a holiday!
Damien has put some photos up here.(There's also the latest "belly watch" photo there)

Sunday 9 November 2008

Decorating and cleaning

Hey all,

We finally got the rest of the decorations for the baby's room this week. It's a collection of vinyl stickers of birds in flight.. we stuck them up this weekend on the main blue wall. I've put some pictures up on flickr so you can have a look.. although they were pretty tricky to photograph, so the wall is a different colour in each shot. It should give a fair idea of how it looks though.

Today we hired a carpet cleaner and picked up quite a collection of sludge from our carpets.. we mainly wanted to do the baby's room and the lounge, but we had a bit of time so got some other areas cleaned as well. It's very rewarding to look at the disturbing brown gunk in the bottom of the machine and know that at least now it's not in the carpets any more :)

That's about it from us for this weekend.. now we're off to a much deserved dinner at a Japanese restaurant on the beach. Huzzah! Cheryl has planned something secret for next weekend that doesn't involve cleaning or looking at baby furniture, so it should be a refreshing change.. I don't know what it is though. Should be fun :)