Brownhill Creek Blogging

We're in Adelaide! My Iaido club are running an instructors seminar this weekend, which gave us the justification to come up here for a bit of a holiday. I'll be working at the GDD offices for 4 days as well, which will allow us to claim the trip on tax ;)

We drove up over Thursday and Friday, and the kids were really well behaved. Lily actually slept for about 2 hours when we started, and woke up just in time to go crazy on the Horsham Maccas playground while Cheryl and I got some lunch (the kids ate sandwiches in the car before we got there). Cheryl is also very clever and wrapped up some activity books for both kids so they got to unwrap them and have a play when they got a bit bored in the car.

We stayed in Bordertown over night and arrived in Adelaide rather early Friday, so we decided to swing past a shopping centre for a bit of lunch and a wander. Then we dropped our stuff off at the caravan park and then headed in to Chinatown for dinner. Oscar has been asking for the triangle sushi and pork buns for a very long time, so he was rapt to finally get them.

Saturday we headed to Chinatown again for lunch (so much good food there, although Os wanted "the same as what I had yesterday") and then into the main city for a look around. There's a new shopping centre in the Mall now with an Apple store, so the kids played on iPads for a bit, ate some Menchies, and then we headed home. We decided to have dinner at home and an early night since it had been a big trip over.

Sunday we went to Marion shopping centre (more Menchies!) and the kids played on the indoor playground there. It seems like this trip is all about us slotting in time to do the things we want to do between the kids playing on stuff. Well, that and eating at all the places we want to eat at (Sunday night was Sushi Train)

Today I'm at work and Cheryl has taken the kids to the Beachouse, which is a big job even when there are two of us so we'll see how she goes. They dropped into the office before heading out there and were already going crazy :) After work the plan is burgers from Fancy Burger and then home for another early night. Tomorrow might be Harbourtown for them and Good Dog for me. Wednesday, though, I'm taking the day off and we're all going to the zoo. I reckon that will be great fun. Pandas!

That's it for me for now.

Church street chatter

It's been a while.
I didn't read Glenn's post on Jules birthday until tonight. The cake looks great and the idea was wonderful.

Clive and I flew to Sydney on the 8th August after leaving his car in the Busy Beaver car park. We had a wonderful few days with Glenn, Dee, Jules and Lucy.Glenn very kindly organised transport for us from the airport and back to the airport, On the Friday and Monday we made use of Pensioner Excursion tickets, where for $2.50 we could use buses, trains and ferries to get around Sydney. Friday we explored the Rocks where there was a food Festival happening. We had a ferry ride and walked more then bused back to Annandale. Went with Dee a few times to collect Jules from his delightful Day care centre. Great facilities hidden away in a shopping centre.

Saturday was catch up on housework day for Dee after returning to fulltime work. Clive pumped up Glenn's bike tyres and enjoyed a ride into Sydney and back. Glenn and Dee did some shopping and I had Jules time.
We walked Lucy in the great park behind the house a few times. I'm sure she misses Clive. With the stairs to the attic bedroom we should have kept up our fitness.

Sunday, Dee came for the Lucy walk so she was allowed off lead for a good romp. I took Jules to play in the playground. Also had a Sunday trip to Berry for lunch and a chance to explore the area. Many thanks to Dee for all of the driving.

Monday we again bused in to the city. We walked across the bridge (20minutes each way) rather than climbing over it ($235 each). Had a delicious lunch in a Guylian eatery, with a glass of wine then iced coffee to follow.More walking round Circular Quay to the Opera House and around it. Getting very windy but the ferries were still operating so we took the ferry to Balmain then walked up the hill (and up and up) to catch the bus back to Annandale.

I've posted the photos on Google. Glorious weather the whole time we were there. We look forward to returning in the future and exploring further afield on the trains.

Since returning home, we went to the Day Club's 7th birthday on Wednesday.The entertainers, the Hoffman's performed. Excellent.I was the photographer for the Day Club as well as the gadabouts, so was kept busy. There were over 100 people there.

I bought a cordless line trimmer and a new washing machine. Machine was delivered on Friday and Lisa brought a sick Trinity to my place while she had playgroup.Trinity was crying over aches in arms, legs, all over. After a sleep, she said it hurt her ribs to breathe.  The Doctor said it was a virus and to keep up the panadol. By Saturday, she seemed much improved. So strange how quickly these things come and go.

Tried out the line trimmer on Saturday. I had a problem with the line and difficulty getting it out and more difficulty getting it back in. Even Dave who mows for Mum couldn't do it, so back to Fitzpatricks. Man there fixed it but if I get stuck again I'll take it back again.It did a good job a trimming the garden edges and I mowed before the rain returned so the yard looks tidy.

I seem to have many clothes to be put away so that's the project for next week. Also looking into who to go with for electricity and gas now my Energy Australia contract has run out.

We've been back dancing since Thursday, each day including an afternoon at Moama today. Monday and Tuesday to go before we have a Wednesday rest.

Looking forward to more news from my family on what they are doing.

Aquarium

It's been about a million years since we posted any news here, which means too much has happened to be able to recap -- so instead let me tell you about Jules' birthday!

Going for a bit of a 20,000 Leagues thing, we spent the morning at the Aquarium, complete with those underwater tunnel under the bay. We saw lot of freaky creatures: enormous sharks and rays, tiny Nemo and Dory, a smiling dugong and something with tentacle for a face...

Lunch was fish and chips at Bondi -- Jules flirted and got a bucket of pencils and a free bubbacino (he made a mess with both). No matter what I did, I couldn't convince him to eat a lemon.

Home for a nap, and then cake and presents.

You may have already seen the yellow submarine cake Dee made, which was inspired by The Beatles and Octonauts both. We also decorated the verandah/balcony with homemade jellyfish (bowls with ribbons), a balloon octopus and streamers.

Just driving home from a day up the coast now . We'll have to go again with Nanny and Clive, and actually remember to pack swimmers this time.

Happy Birthdays!

Happy Birthday to Jules, Ann, Trinity and...oh, me! :p

Hope everyone is enjoying their celebrations!

Looking forward to when Jules and Trin are older and maybe we can all have a four-day non-stop birthday party together ;) 

Long Time No Post

So its been a while since I last posted but a lot has happened in that time. I am back at uni after a few weeks break which has been nice. I have classes 3 days a week this semester, doing math, programming and databases.

A few friends and I have been on a few roadtrips to Vaughn Springs, Mt Macedon (to see what little snow was there) , a few towns between Bendigo and Melbourne and Lake Mountain, which was closed when we got there :( Two weeks ago Shaun and I went to Upwey for dinner in this nice little Thai resturaunt, they had amazing food it all looked really good but having never had Thai it was a hard decision. Last week he asked me out after dinner at home, he makes me happy and he makes me smile, Mervyn thinks he is super amazing and the reason we are together, in a way he is because he started the conversation that lead us to knowing how the other felt but it was Shaun that asked me. I went to Melbourne with Shaun, Ange and Jen on Thursday and we went to China Town and Crown Casino, I had never been to crown and I won $10 on the pokies, then Shaun and I had dinner in Lygon Street at Tica Tera. Saturday night we had a friends engagement party, it was heaps of fun and lots of photos got taken :)

I'm going to China at the end of October with the BCA Plum Blossom dancing team to learn more about the culture and to learn more dances at professional dance schools as well as doing some touristy things. I shall try to update more oftern :)

Happy Birthday Dayna!

According to Google it's currently about half past 12 in the night on the 22nd over in the UK, so it sounds like it's time to kick off the birthday celebrations :)

Happy Birthday! I trust you'll have a break from work and find time for a quiet drink or ten ;)

Stop! Hammer Toe!

Hey all, a quick update from me to explain the toe shenanigans I've been getting up to.

So for starters, it turns out there's a name for the freaky curled-around toes I have - it's "hammer toe", and it's generally caused by bad footwear. I've had it pretty much forever, although since moving to Bendigo I've been walking barefoot more and it's actually been easing up a bit.

On Saturday while at what I think we'd all agree was an awesome party I was up in the playground with Lily, who wanted to crawl through some tubes for a bit of a look. I followed her, but as I clambered over raised ladder-style steps that were clearly made for tiny feet I felt pain in my toe. I checked it once we got out, and realised along with pain I couldn't move said toe (the second along) and it was no longer curled around - it was, in fact, almost normally straight.

This freaked me out, so we headed off to the doctor, who, after commenting that he hadn't seen toes like mine before (thanks dude) said he didn't think it was broken, or indeed that anything was wrong with it, but we could get an x ray anyway. I thought, given his lack of familiarity with my freakish feet, a second opinion was probably worthwhile, so Monday (after a weekend of quite a bit of pain, ice packs and bad sleeping) I got photos taken of my bones.

Today we went back to another doctor, and he cleared it all up. My bones weren't broken or dislocated, what I'd (probably) done was torn or snapped a tendon or ligament. If I take neurophen and use either hot or cold packs to lessen the swelling the pain should hopefully go away, and my toe should heal up. But yeah, my toe hadn't straightened up because bones were broken, it had straightened up because the tendon that was too short and causing it to curl around had snapped.

Interestingly, if you look up possible solutions for Stop! Hammer Toe! if stretching isn't working they suggest a surgical procedure where they cut the tendon. So I suppose I've saved myself some money there. Too bad for old righty, since I'm not going through that again just to have a matching pair of feet.

Here's hoping it heals up before the Iaido seminar in Adelaide at the end of August.

Gordon St Gossip

I opened my dojo, Zen Shin Kan, last night. I had four students - Carolynn, her friends Conor and Dylan, and an older guy named George who came up from Kyneton. George will be an occasional student with that drive. I hope Carolynn and her friends continue - all three of them did really well. I don't know if it's just having a younger brain, but they were picking up the fundamentals very well.

Of course there are two types of students - those who pick up the style naturally, with little trouble, and those (like me) who have to work at it and persevere. The thing to realise is that after 10 years these two students are indistinguishable :) so I guess the best trait in a new student is patience.

But yeah, I think it went well. We covered a bit of cutting, a bit of a waza, and some general principals. A lot to build on.

The hall I'm hiring is $15 an hour, and I'm hiring for 2 hours to allow set up and pack up time. I'll charge my students $10 a class, so the mathematically-minded amongst you will be able to work out that I need a minimum of 3 students each class to cover the cost. Based on Reynella, that means 4 or 5 ongoing students would be ideal, since inevitably people miss occasional classes. The hall isn't huge - it fit the 4 people along one wall okay, and if there are more that that I'll line them up on the other wall.. but if it got much larger than that we'd probably have to look at moving.  So I have an ideal class size in mind of 5 - 8 ongoing students - If I got that I'd be very happy :)

I bought some bokken online and they got shipped here in a week, which was great. I might get some more so I can return the plastic bokken to Adelaide on August. I need to buy some wrap to rewrap my two iaito so the students can use them when they're a bit more advanced.

I also signed up to a sword club, which provided me with a license to own the swords. You need this even for a blunt sword, sadly. Lisa, Carolynn mentioned you have some of Adam's swords in a cupboard somewhere - I was thinking you can either join the club (it's $25 a year) or I can put them in the cupboard here until the kids are old enough to join the club themselves. I'll post the club info on facebook.

Of course the best part about getting the dojo kicked off is that I now have an excuse to train once a week.

Brooklea Park BBQ

I agree with Mum - it's July! !?!

The highlight this week was our impromptu BBQ on Saturday. We bought a little charcoal barbie during the week (one we can easily pack into the shed, or a cupboard, or take in the car - you can see it in the photo below). The weather seemed good so B went and bought charcoal and some vege sausages while I sent a message to some of the people at Uni. Our neighbours' son and partner are staying with them at the moment, so they joined us on the lawn and two of my workmates also turned up. It was a really lovely afternoon with sunshine, tasty food and drink, and great company; and it turned into a fun evening too - when it got too cold to sit outside our neighbours went home and the rest of us ended up playing the Wii for a few hours. :-D

Not much else going on for us last week - I tried to have two days off but worked from home for one of them and then had a ChemNet event, two Spectroscopy in a Suitcase sessions (one I couldn't go to so my team had their first trip alone) and an education conference.

Bruce says that everything he got up to is in the last post.

This week I've got to sort out a bunch of Outreach events for July - though I had today off (mostly.. had some emails to do in the morning) and it's Bruce's last week at the school (so he's not doing much at all :-P).

Your turn!

Gordon St Goss

It's the beginning of school holidays and it's nice for Os (and Damien!) to have a break from the 8.15am kindy starts. Hopefully we'll be able to do a few activities etc when Os is feeling well (he had another episode of "being-sick-due-to-not-eating-enough-dinner-the-night-before", or ketotic hypoglycemia), but I think he may have recovered as his appetite has returned and he is back to bugging Lily! :-\

Last Saturday we had Lisa and the kids (-Carolynn but +Maddison) over for dinner. The little kids had a ball running around and going nuts :p It was nice to have everyone here. 

The next day I went to a Thermomix demo- it was awesome :) So much great food and a very impressive machine! Then again, for $1939 it needs to be pretty damn amazing!! 

Tuesday was my mum's birthday, so we headed over there for dinner. It's always hard to find a birthday present for parents, and because of my mum's type 2 diabetes it's even harder as we don't have the usual chocolate/treat food as a fall-back. I did, however, bake her some spelt bread (thanks Dee for the recipe) and vegie muffins, as well as a wholemeal sugar-free banana and blueberry birthday cake! Os also bought her some watermelon seeds to plant :) 

Friday night was Carolynn's ex-teacher's farewell/birthday drinks at the Golden Vine. The kids enjoyed being out "late" and it didn't take long for them to warm to Josh & Belinda and start calling them "cheeky bum!" :)

Damien has organised his dojo! He has a hall (close to Lisa's house) and has set a day and time for each week. I think it'll be great for him to get back into it. He has a lot to offer as a sensei! I'm looking forward to being able to help out with the promotion side of it... but that will happen when we're back from Adelaide. I'll let Damien tell you all more about it :)

I think that's it for now!

Church St Chatter

and now it's July
I'm definitely not good at a weekly post.
I've been dancing regularly but still eating the tempting suppers so no weight loss. I think I posted to the 6 month challenge.
Been to help Lisa a couple of times so making progress there. I found a bookshelf at the church garage sale so that's given her more book storage space. Also managed to put together a flat pack cupboard Denise and I found at the op shop. More storage behind a door for Lisa when I take it there next Thursday.
Got my hair cut last Tuesday then came home to put in a colour to cover the grey.
Had some Red Hat functions and more lunches out at various Clubs. Also last Tuesday Mum, Clive and I went to a fundraiser at the Star cinema. We enjoyed "A Song for Marion". I liked it better than "The Great Gatsby". I saw Lisa has the book. Perhaps I should read it again.
The church had a garage sale last Saturday and I got rid of some things as well as buying.
Trying to reduce the amount in the wardrobe. I found the jacket I wore to Damien and Cheryl's wedding will no longer do up. Pesky shrinking wardrobe.However there's a skirt that was great for dancing and it still fitted.
Clive has found he can't make it for the trip to Phillip Island in October so it will be Mum and I and Denise and Pete.
Looking forward to our visit to Sydney in August.
All for now. Keep posting everyone as I  love to read about what you have been doing.

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 8^th 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

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.

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!!