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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?

Friday 28 June 2013

Brooklea Park Piffle


Ok so this is my first post on here – mainly because I’m lazy and I believe in being succinct, which doesn’t usually make for good reading!
Since Dayna’s last post we haven’t really been up to much, just the daily grind of going to work, eating, sleeping, that sort of stuff. Last week I was offered a new job at the science centre in Cardiff, I start on the 8th of July (yay – 1 week to go) and I’m really looking forward to it. It does mean I miss out on the nice 7-week school summer holiday, but I’ll still be glad to leave the school, it’s basically run by the parents and they complain about everything! It’s just not worth the hassle and they haven’t exactly treated me well!
Needless to say we went out for a few tinnies to celebrate my new job but apart from that we haven’t been out much – ‘cept for a trip at the weekend to the ‘bargain shops’ which resulted in us buying lots of ‘tat’ which we probably don’t need.....but hey - it was cheap!

At the end of July we’re going to Prague, which is in the Czech Republic. They have relaxed laws on prostitution so it should be quite interesting – just kidding J hopefully we’ll get some nice weather to do some exploring - so look out for the postcards soon to be heading your way.

Hold on – just need to shut the window...our groundsman Jeeves is mowing the lawn and it’s frightfully noisy!
Ah that’s better...where was I? Oh yes, I was about to mention our new BBQ which I bought the other day. It’s a ‘proper’ BBQ...i.e. one which is fuelled by charcoal...not one of these ‘let’s just have a gas grill outside’ – what’s that all about?? It’s good that you don’t have to wait 20 minutes before you can use a gas BBQ...but BBQ’s are for men to show off their inner Homo Erectus and somehow gas grills just don’t seem dangerous or manly enough to me! Though I have to agree that they are easier to use. Apparently we’re not actually supposed to have BBQ’s at our place, but since nobody has officially informed us of this I chose to ignore the hearsay, and purchased a portable BBQ which we can hide in the garage. Ok so the smell might give it away when we use it, but we can always blame it on the neighbours J or rely on the driving rain to somehow contain it.

Anyway, as I said before we don't really have much to report and I’ve already rambled on enough, so I’ll say ta ta for now and I’ll go and feed Ky a tasty mouse....mmmmmm
Speak soon

Friday 21 June 2013

Gordon St Gossip

I don't keep a diary but Cheryl and I both use a shared Google Calendar to keep track of our week, so I can use that to work out what we've been up to these last few weeks.

We went to a friend's birthday at Piya Wat a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time we'd been in a very long time.. Cheryl went there for her hen's night, so as a couple it was from before 2004. It hadn't really changed :) The food is good, exceptional really, and a very reasonable price. Be warned, though, I got a salad and it was spicy! You'd want to check with the waiter if spicy is not your thing. But yeah, it's a fancy eating experience at a good price :)

We also finally got the car serviced this week. Mum, the guy you recommended was great! Really nice, good service and very affordable. Our poor car has a few things that need fixing, so no doubt he'll get repeat service from us.. but yeah, the last time we got it serviced they ended up doing an extra $1,600 in work which may or may not have been necessary.. in retrospect I should have told them not to and got a second opinion. I know we asked them to fix the boot cable and they charged us $20 to inspect the bonnet cable and say it wasn't broken (with an additional note that the boot cable was) so that particular garage will never get any more work from us or anyone who knows us.

The reason we wanted to get it done (apart from that it was about 6 months overdue) is that we're going to be visiting Adelaide in August. We've been looking for an excuse, to be honest, since our good friend had a baby recently, and I know I miss the Chinatown food court. Then the head dojo emailed me about a 2 day seminar they were running for instructors, so that gave us the final excuse. The plan is to head up on a Thur/Fri, stay for a week while I work at the GDD offices, have the weekend seminar, then come back Mon/Tues. It means 4 days of not working, which is a fair bit, but then I've been working a lot recently and a mini holiday would be nice. Plus this way Cheryl and the kids get a holiday while I work, which will be nice. Good to see everybody as well.

Oh, speaking of working a fair bit, this week we had a mad push to get a site launched by Tuesday US time (Wednesday lunch for us). I had built the original templates (well within budget I might add) and then passed it off to someone else to finish up. Then it had to be converted to a CMS, which essentially meant rebuilding the site in a slightly different language.. this was passed back to me on Thursday, with the launch Tuesday. That's not enough time! Still, I worked on the weekend, pulled a couple of rather long days and we got there.. and the additional benefit is I only have to work 3 hours today! I'm going to go to Kinder with Cheryl and the kids this morning. Should be fun.

Oh, one other thing - I took Ossie to Kindy yesterday morning. As we entered a little girl (Lillian) said to a boy sitting next to her (Foster) "Here he is!" and Foster said "Hi Oscar". Os somewhat mumbled a reply and went off to play with a wooden train set, at which point Lillian came over to join in. If you ask Ossie he says his friend is Abby, who is Foster's sister.. but I suspect Lillian and Foster consider him a friend as well, even if he's not aware of it. Of course when I asked him about it he couldn't remember who Lillian was and claimed that she -was- Abby.. so who knows :) Anyway, it's really nice to know he's making friends. Hopefully they go to Specimen Hill next year as well.

Sunday 16 June 2013

Church St Chatter

I really need diary entries to remember what I've been doing. Last Monday was a public holiday here and Clive and I drove to Melbourne to deliver some items for a friend of his then went to Williamstown RSL to meet other friends for lunch. We had a most enjoyable day then came home to get dressed up to go dancing that night. Really good turnout too for a Queen's birthday dance. Tuesday Clive had a meeting at night so I had a quiet night home alone.Wednesday I took Mum to the Day Club then we watched the DVD of Pam Ayres when I brought her home. A rainy day.Wednesday evening Clive came over for dinner but we didn't go to Castlemaine. Thursday we danced at Eaglehawk. Only 20 more than the committee. Talk of going into recess for the winter.Friday we were off to Trentham. Very chilly out but a good night of dancing. Saturday was the Winter Gala so glammed up a bit. I've changed my FB profile pic to one taken that night.
I managed to fit in defrosting the freezer, washing the car, general house cleaning and Thursday and Sunday pm at Lisa's.
The Church is having a garage sale so I called them and hope they'll collect some bits I'd like gone.

Brooklea Park Banter


I agree with Mum - time is flying!

June means (British) Summer, such that it is... and we actually had lovely weather for a couple of weeks. Last week (when the photos are from and when I started this post) we were sitting on the verandah drinking cider (Mum, we even found a berry Bulmers in our fridge.... did you drink all the ones we gave you for Xmas?). This week, it's grey and rainy and you'd be decidedly damp if you were sitting on the verandah this evening. :-/

This week has been same ol', same ol' with both of us feeling overwhelmed with work - B with report writing and marking and me with trying to keep on top of lots of stuff..

We had a lovely but busy weekend last week - Friday we headed to Rochester in Kent for Pete and Charne's joint birthday party (Pete was my boss when I started at Cardiff - he and Charne held some great dinner parties, right Mum?). Their party was on Saturday night and involved lots of food and drink. Sunday we drove up to Birmingham for the Bon Jovi concert at Aston Villa Park. Rock on! They played for 3 hours!!! I don't know much of their later stuff but they played a good lot of their oldies. Lis, I thought of you. :-)

The last week of May was the Urdd Eisteddfod in Pembrokeshire. The Urdd is a bilingual youth festival. The RSC worked with the Institute of Physics and the British Science Association to host a stall. Happily this meant I only had to look after the stand for two of the six days - Friday and Saturday (yes, some of my weekend!). Bruce came along to help out (a volunteer/voluntold) so we tacked on a couple of days and relaxed in a lovely little b&b in Pembrokeshire.

I think that just about takes us back to our last post. The only other thing of note was that I strained my foot at a conference. It was all bruised and swollen but I could always walk on it - I think I've attached the photo collage of the first week. We went to get it checked out one evening and spent 5 hours in A&E. :-/ Not fun but at least they told me that there weren't any breaks. It's still achey today, even though it has been nearly a month. O well. I'm taking it easy and it will get better eventually. :-)

So, that's our mammoth update - we'll try to update more regularly.
Lots of love to everyone!!

Thursday 6 June 2013

and now it's June

So good to have family support for Lisa and the family with Adam's death. Such a long drive for Glenn and Dee but it was great for Mum to have a chance to see Jules and how he has grown.Maybe we'll get her up to Sydney. I thought I'd wait until I see what the steps and stairs are like.Beautiful flowers have brightened Lisa's lounge. The flowers from the coffin, Lisa gave to Mum for Papa and Tony's grave and she said they looked lovely.

Dee cooked a couple of meals here. Delicious.Thank you Dee.

We enjoyed lunch at Grilled with Lisa, Carolynn, Jared and Maddi then visited Damien and Cheryl's place.

Lisa is doing very well. She has made a start on sorting and discarding although I haven't had a chance to be there for her this week.

We are having a lunch for Mum's birthday here on Sunday. I'm taking her to a Red Hat lunch tomorrow.

On Tuesday Clive and I went to Kyneton. First time we've been since April.Where did May go??

Yesterday I had a Spinners meeting and also met Clive's family at lunch time (his three siblings all got together for lunch when the Swan Hill ones had appointments in Bendigo at the hospital.)I couldn't join them for lunch as it was a meeting at Spinners and I'm the reluctant secretary. Not as reluctant as the President who resigned this month.

Today I made soup, did some laundry, dyed my hair (and now have an orange fingernail) and am going to see the Great Gatsby at the cinema, compliments of Financial Index.

Went to Sutton Grange Gala night on Friday evening. Shocking weather (wind and rain). Now I know what's needed to win these sashes.(gloves, bag) Don't think that will ever happen to me so I'm not going to bother. Danced Saturday at Spring Gully and again on Monday night. Eaglehawk tonight after the movie. The numbers there are so bad they miss us if we miss going.

Still don't resist supper enough so the weight stays on despite the exercise.

Last week was the 40th birthday for the Spinners. It went off very well. Not sure how long the group will continue as the members are ageing and can't do what's needed to keep going. so it falls to less and less people.

What has everyone else been doing?