Church St Chatter

Another fortnight since a post.
Apart from dancing, Clive and I had a two day trip to Swan Hill last week. Went up Wednesday as photos on FB show, stayed with Clive's sister and brother in law and had dinner at Murray Downs where we hoped to dance but it was cancelled at the last minute so no dancing. We do Rock and roll on Tuesday's. Not as much variety as ballroom but no travelling needed so we can have much earlier nights. Up to advanced group now.
I've been making felt flowers after we had a workshop at Spinners. Also starting with organising for next year's Deb Ball (need a new photographer) and that went well.
Mum bought a Nutribullet when they had a buy one get one free deal so she bought one for me as well. Yet to try it.
Managed to get Mum transferred to my doctor as she has been very unhappy with the doctor she was transferred to when her doctor retired. I've booked for a flu shot on 5th May. Have heard of several people having a reaction to it so hope any adverse reaction is short lived.
Garden is neglected but I did plant some snow peas, spinach and onions. Zucchini plants are still trying but their coordination is off so I get a batch of female flowers then a batch of male flowers but that doesn't get the fertilization happening. Also found some old marigold seeds so they went in the front just before we finally had some rain. Weather has been beautiful apart from lack of rain but is cooling down now so heater is on.
Still attempting to declutter and I have drop offs at the op shop occasionally. I also buy at op shop so just hope it at least balances out.
Dayna, I saw there is a Dance sport group at Cardiff Uni. How much is dance and how vigorous is the sport? So many dances that we can go north and not know half of the dances so not sure how I'd go in Wales but I'd be interested to see what they do.
Quiet night in tonight. First Sunday in three weeks without a dance afternoon.
Josie and family had a great time in America although Mason was sick when he had the helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon.
We have a blessing ceremony for Ryan Chatham on the 9th May (Chris and Emma)
Planning an afternoon tea here on 7th June for Mum's 90th birthday.
Look forward to news from all of the family.

New Bandwagon Header

Look up. Look down. Look up again. What you're seeing is that finally I've updated the Bandwagon header :)

I hope you're all happy with your illustrated avatars. As always if you want your own let me know and I'll pull it out of the fla and send you a copy. If you've got change requests please let me know, and I'll try to get to it at some point in the next 3 years ;)

I'll try to get a version sorted for tees and stickers and calendars and the like soon.

more tidying up

Sorry I forgot the camera. Today at Lisa's I moved things around in the living room, made pikelets for lunch and sorted the plastics cupboard. Carolynn worked in her room filling the new drawers. Lisa cleaned the bathroom, toilet and then started on her room. She found and moved out the cot but her bed was full of clothes when I left at 4pm ish( with the cot mattress.) Ian, the landlord, called in to check Adam's reports of mould. He will replace the bathroom fan but thinks the mould is due to the number of people in the house, the lack of circulated air, overcrowding. He congratulated Lisa on what she manages to achieve. He will try to find the key to the windows so they can open the windows on a sunny day. I brought in the washing and put out the last load so more moisture in the air to try to dry the washing.

Tomorrow I'm going at 8.30am so that Lisa can take Carolynn to the dentist at 9am without the little girls. We'll continue the clean up while Adam is away although he said Pat may bring the trailer when they return on Monday to clean up the yard. Not holding my breath on that one. If Lisa can manage to sort her room the passage is next job in line. Couldn't fit the panels for Jared's room in the car but he is private as long as Daria can be kept out. I'm joining Probus for lunch at the Manchester Arms. I'll call to try to get my heater checked out in the afternoon. Ian, Lisa's landlord, will get a new fan for the bathroom and fit it sometime next week.

I have the Wool Show Tuesday and Thursday and then on Friday and Sunday. The Red Hatters have a cocktail party at Strathfieldsaye on Saturday night, but I have a ride so just need to get the cooking done. That will be a busy week and I turned down the opportunity to have a boarder from the Sheep Show for the weekend. Off to Ballarat to see John Ives on Monday and will go to lunch at John and Kerry's then home. Next week should be quieter???

The week that was

Hi all. Thought this the best way to catch you all and I 'll post a reminder on FB to check in because I don't and I hadn't seen Damien's last post.

Games I have for the Wii are Play Motion, Crazy Mini Golf 2, Family Game Show, Just Dance, Mariocart and Wii Fit plus. All still unopened because I'm too busy.

What power tools do you want Damien? Glenn has the sander at the moment. Dayna's drill set is here and I'm keeping the Makita one Dad bought most recently.

We did get Jared set up in his own space yesterday. Think we could attach some panelling to the back of the bookcases to make walls. Lisa the large panels are 4 ft wide. I think we could cut two down to 3 ft to fit the bookcases and maybe use another one as a door that Jared can pull across when he wants to say the door is shut. We'll probably have to use a hand saw to cut them. I found a powerboard for him.

Maybe Adam should look at this diet Damien and Glenn are using if Damien is getting results. I want to know more especially when you can eat pizza and icecream on your free day.

lisa I'm free next weekend again if you want to do more. You can call to collect the drawers for Carolynn and the panelling on Tuesday or Friday morning if you want so Carolynn can get on with her room.

Shopping with Denise on Monday but no idea of times. Lunch out with Nana on Tuesday but home before and after unless I stay for coffee with you all. Spinners on Wednesday, home by 3ish, Exercise Thursday then out for afternoon tea at the Gibson's and maybe square dancing with Denise at night. Meeting Friday afternoon.

Photos of the new rooms wanted. I'd like Adam to move some of the adult books to his two bookshelves to free up the bookshelf in the passage for the children's books. Bring the cot and mattress back here when you collect the foam mattress for Daria. So much easier to plan than to do but we are making progress.

The long way home concludes

Today Glenn and Dee collect the keys to their new house. Another step in their adventures. I'm sure they'll post photos when they get the internet sorted. They'll be back next weekend for another load. I know Les would have taken a trailer load and the way he packed it would have all got there in one trip. I'll be happy for the visits the extra trips mean.

Nana got the postcard from Dayna and just loved it. Waiting to hear how your move and new job are going. Much love and thoughts headed your way.

Today I'm out to lunch with the Red Hat ladies. A member is returning to England at the end of the month and she's invited us for lunch at her daughter's. Next Friday is a picnic in the park at Castlemaine. The group has certainly meant more socializing.

Now Glenn and Dee have moved on, I hope to lose the 2 kilos I've gained in the last few months. Difficult to do with my outings that include yummy lunches, but I'll see how I go. Glenn has downloaded more Zumba for me to help.

Lots of love to you all

Spring

Some spring here.

Update from us

As usual, it's been a while since we posted anything on the bandwagon, so I thought I'd give a bit of an update. This week has could have best been described as Hellishly busy. After a few weeks of not much going on at work, suddenly a client came to us with a massive job and a really tight deadline.. today being said deadline, and I'm writing this over my lunchbreak while awaiting any more feedback from them. Unfortunately, this was also the week in which I've got two Iaido demos.. one on Sunday, and the other yesterday afternoon. This basically meant that the last few days I've been starting around 6 or 7am so I can get the work done and also so I could leave early Wednesday for the demo. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but the sum result is I'm pretty tired :)

So the demos. Yesterday afternoon Takeo and I were at a big park in Adelaide for a half hour or so. We did some kata together, then faced off against each other with Takeo attacking and me defending.. then we did five each alone (we were clapped at the end!) and finished with some bamboo cutting. The crowd actually built up to be pretty large. Cheryl has posted photos, and I'll chuck a couple in here.. you can see it's fairly sparse in the first one, but by the end there's people behind us watching as well. The demo Sunday should be a bit less stress.. it's just for my Dojo in Reynella, so myself and a couple of students will do about 3 kata each and that will be all.

If you want to see all the photos you can see them here.

We hung around at the Moon Lantern Festival after the demo to eat some delicious Korean food and watch a few of the shows on the main stage. Oscar also tasted his first ice-cream.. which was Cheryl's ice-cream, but he didn't want to share ;) We got it off him when we offered him a banana instead.. he loves his fruit!

Oscar is growing up so quickly and learning a lot. He's gradually adding more words, some from us (like "nan" and "up") and some from childcare (like "ta" and "more") and some he just seems to pick up himself. He started saying "nose", "mouth" and his favourite "eye" suddenly one day. He really likes to mimic us too.. sometimes you wont realise you're doing something (like scratching the top of your head) until you see Os doing it too.

He's becoming much better at feeding himself.. some foods are easier than others of course, but he loves using a spoon, fork and knife when he can. He also loves reading books.. I think that's his favourite quiet time activity. Sometimes he'll even sit down and look through the books himself. We play a lot, he loves chasing and hiding games, and really likes exploring outside. He can get a bit quiet and shy with new people, but I reckon it takes about 20 minutes for him to get used to them (and it took about 2 minutes with Sam :))

We're looking forward to seeing Mum and Nana next week, even if there is a fair bit of cleaning the house still to be done. I'm getting Wednesday and Thursday off work (which I appreciate even more after this week) and then Friday Cheryl and I will go out for a few drinks with friends to celebrate my birthday. Gotta make the most of the experienced babysitters :) Monday is a public holiday too! It's going to be a good week :)

Hmm.. I think that's it from me. Hopefully Cheryl can pop on and say how her work is going, and anything I might have forgotten. I'd better get back to work!

Holiday in SA

We've just returned home after a great week. We travelled to Kingston on the first day via Naracorte. The second day we followed the coast road to Wellington. Dad was disappointed to find you couldn't see the sea and the weather varied from very wet and squally to fine and sunny. It was fun to cross the river in a punt at Wellington and we were lucky in having a very short wait to cross. We visited one winery then had lunch in Strathalbyn. We followed the winding roads and found Bains Rd which led us to Damien and Cheryl's. Oscar was very smiley. What a happy little boy. On Thursday, we walked with Cheryl and Oscar to the local shopping centre, a short? 1.7 kms. We should be feeling fitter. Friday we rested although the weather cleared so we weeded their garden. Went out for an all you can eat for tea at a Chinese restaurant. Pouring rain, hail and windy.
Saturday we all went to the larger shopping centre where Dad bought me a rose gold necklace for my birthday. I've been looking but not found what I wanted before. Also I bought a pair of homyped black boots, ready for next winter.( Nana gave me birthday money so now I've spent it.)
Today we left about 9am SA time, stopped at a local shopping centre where I bought a glass dragon then headed for home. Mostly fine and sunny. We had two stops for lunch and a cuppa and arrived home about 5.30 Vic time. Foxie is glad we've turned the heater back on. I'm sure he missed the heater more than us.

Photos photos everywhere, and all the boards did shrink

For those of you who have been waiting patiently for the photographic evidence of our trip to sunny (actually quite freezing cold) Bendigo, here they are in all their glory. We took a lot more, but trust me, these are the best ;)

Blue-eyed future Sword Saint ;)

Just a quick update from us.

Oscar has calmed down a lot - he's on Losec for his reflux - the Mylanta we had him on previously wasn't doing the trick. It does help, although sometimes it can still be difficult getting him to sleep.. but he's not awake every 45 minutes all day and night now, so it's a big plus. We're hoping once he reaches that 6 month point we wont need to give him the medication.. often that's when it settles down anyway.

Cheryl had her shopping day in Melbourne on Saturday (for our anniversary I got her a return ticket).. she spent most of her time (and money) at the DFO at Southern Cross Station, definitely worth a look if you're ever visiting the rainy city. I looked after Oscar for the day.. from 5am when Cheryl left until 9pm when she returned. Thankfully now he's got his medication he was much more relaxed and actually managed a few hours of sleep in there.

The other thing that helped keep me sane over the day was my new iPhone - Cheryl's anniversary present to me.. well, a combination of Cheryl and Kevin Rudd really. I was able to hold Oscar and still surf the net or play games I had downloaded. It was much better than my previous method of passing the time - staring into space :)

This morning we all headed to Goodwood for Iaido, because we had the Grading Certificate Presentations. I am now officially Ni-Dan, which makes me a sensei and also meant I got an art name - a name specific to the style to represent me. My name is "Go Seki".. the "Go" part is from Shihan's art name (Go Ho) and indicates that we have come from the Australian school.. and the "Seki" part means "stone" or "rock".. which was Shihan's (and the Grandmaster's) opinion of me I guess. I hope it's solid as a rock, and not rock-headed ;)

Oh, and finally there's a few more photos of Oscar up - http://www.flickr.com/photos/damienmason/3495448177/in/set-72157613379231082/ Cheryl took some fantastic shots, and I think it's pretty safe to say Oscar's eyes will be staying blue now :)

RACV and family updates

Just reading about the "incredible Museum of Science and Technology" in Manchester. Is that where you're working Dayna? The RACV suggest Manchester as a better starting point for a trip to England than London, especially with the preparation for Olympic games in 2012. Look out tourists from Australia will be flocking to Manchester.
We had a visit from the Hazelman's on Friday. They brought some dried fruit for Dad. Great to see them. Dad had a very ordinary weekend. He certainly wasn't up to going to a party on Saturday night. John and Julie did visit him last Tuesday so they probably didn't expect us.
Dad sees the dietician on Monday. I begin to think a spell in hospital with the feeding tube might be a good idea if it could get him eating again. Maybe all he has to do is wait for the pain to subside, but that is taking longer than he'd hoped. I know we would all give him some kilos if we could.
We have rain .......and wind........and more rain. Surely the storages are filling up. The washing is drying over the heater vents already. Only last week it was warm and sunny and now it's cold and windy. Damien and Cheryl had a rain experience they can write about.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everybody. I hope you all have had an enjoyable long weekend.

(more new photos over at flickr)

Oh, and big thanks to Auntie Dayna for the present, you can see him enjoying it here

Update from Adelaide

Hey guys.. well, some pretty big updates on the bandwagon. Jared, I hope you had a great birthday, we're still organising your present, maybe we'll give it to you when you visit. Ma n Pa, sorry to hear about the scary ER visit, but I'm glad Dad's on the mend again. A trip to Emergency is never a particularly pleasant experience.

As far as we are going, things are all pretty good. We've had Edith and Landon here for the last three weeks, and Rach arrived on Tuesday, but they headed home this morning. I know Oscar enjoyed seeing his grandparents and auntie, and we certainly appreciated an extra few pairs of hands to cook, clean up and occasionally take the baby so we could sleep :)

We took Oz to the beach on Saturday, which was great.. he slept pretty much the entire time. Then when we got home he was awake for some photos and a quick webcam chat with his other grandparents (and great-grandparent). I've put still more photos in the Oscar set on flickr.

I think the photos are generally 1200x1600, so if you want them at a bigger size to print just let me know.. the originals are more like 2500 x 1900. Mum and Dad, you do have that book to fill up after all ;)

That's about it from us. The time just seems to be flying by, it's hard to believe Oscar's a month old already. In no time he'll be eating all the food in the fridge and sleeping until noon :)

Delightful deception

As you all know, Dee threw Glenn a surprise 30th birthday party last weekend. I was in on it from the start and Glenn didn't suspect a thing!

I went to London last Thursday - I had my end of year appraisal on Friday, so I checked that I could stay over with G&D. This wasn't unusual, I'd popped down to London for work before and Glenn is used to me staying over. What he didn't know was that I'd requested my appraisal for Friday so that I could be there for the weekend. heheheh...

I'd been in London a few weeks ago to see Toby - an Aussie who was only in the UK for a few days. We'd gone to Camden Market and I'd spied some cool Xmas pressies for you lot. I decided Saturday would be a good day to go get them (since I'm away all of November) and Glenn agreed to come along (as we were hoping). We headed off around lunch time. Dee had gone to "get Glenn's present" - she was really getting things organised for the party.

Once we were out of the way, Dee, Tina, Chris and Colleen got to work making the party-house - helium balloons, nibbles, all the important things. Glenn and I had a fab time wandering around the market, buying presents (I even got Glenn's pressies while we were out), eating tasty curries and looking at lots of interesting things. Eventually, we headed back towards the flat, stopping at St Pancras station for 'high tea'. Yes, we had an English tea (tea and scones) in a French cafe for an Aussie birthday. How multicultural. While we were eating, I got a call from Dee that it was all set to go - Glenn didn't even question why I got the call and not him (we said his phone had no reception - he didn't even check..heheh.. trusting brother).

We made it back and "Surprise"!!

I missed out on the birthday cake cos I had to go and get Bruce from the train station - he had his appraisal on Monday, so he came and stayed at G&D's too. It was a fun night - there are MANY photos here. It seemed like Glenn had a good time, made better by the surprise. Yay us for not letting him know. *grin*

On Sunday, after a pancake breakfast, Bruce and I went to the Science Museum - we like to play with all the hands-on exhibits. I had fun taking photos of the thermal imaging camera. :-) The weekend passed far too quickly and on Monday Bruce headed to work and I caught the train back to Manchester.

This weekend, I'm staying at home - it seems like ages since I've done that for one reason or another. Tomorrow morning I'm catching up with Vicki, Steven, Angelika and James for brunch and Killer Bunnies. Then tomorrow afternoon I head over to Wirral where I'll be working for most of next week. *phew* I'm looking forward to having a holiday!

Happy Birthday Dad!

HAPPY 60th!!!

Hope you've had a splendid day.
(with lots of unlicensed dancing)

Lots of love and hugz

Photos from our Victoria trip - lots of Daria, because she's new and little.

Make with the clicky click

new ceiling

After a busy week we now have a plaster ceiling in the sunroom. Dad sanded it today and went to buy some ceiling paint. He hopes to get the undercoat on this weekend since the weather is to be cool. He's very tired at the moment.
I've just finished my first full week. I'm glad to have Fridays off. I did my aquaexercise, walked down to the library then to work to sign my roster. Laundry is up to date including some from work because I forgot to send it home with a parent. A good day off.
When is the house warming?
Great to talk to Glenn this morning. I tried for Dayna as well but no answer. Is she still in Glasgow? Maybe on the job arranging volunteer tutors and schools.
Heard from Val Loomes last night. All good now, but Peter has been sick and has finally given up smoking.
Lots of love to all