A Hop Across the Pond - Montreal

I missed a post last week, work has been keeping me more than busy! This month is a bit insane for me.. I was working last Saturday (a teacher conference), had an evening event on Monday, drove to Bangor (North Wales) on Tuesday to run a workshop and attend a Local Section meeting, had to be in Brecon (mid-Wales) by 9.15am on Wednesday and then back to North Wales for a Skills event that ran for Wednesday evening and all day Thursday. I finally got home on Thursday night and after three very, very long days, I did very little yesterday!
If I'm lucky, then this map will show you where I've driven this week.

John & Gwen are visiting this weekend (it was Gwen's birthday earlier this week) and I'm working in Swansea tomorrow - but I'll keep that until next week. The bottom line is I'm spending way too much time working and need to find more 'life' balance.... somehow...

Anyway, time for the next installment (as the holiday fades in our memories)...

Montreal

We didn't really have much of a plan for Montreal - we wanted to catch up with Max & Malika (I knew Max from Canberra) and we had a list of 'recommended activities' to do if we had the time and inclination. After the bustle of New York, it was really good to have a few days to just relax in this laid-back and arty city (check out some of the wall art - it was really cool and it's everywhere!).

Sunday
Arrived in the afternoon and after finding our apartment, went for a very tasty vegetarian meal with Max & Malika. They gave us a whistle-stop tour of the area and pointed out a few things that we could do.

Monday (Labor Day)

Walked up many, many stairs to the top of the Mount to check out the views (along with everyone else who was visiting Montreal!). We found a new band playing one of the "Pianos publics" (pianos just left around the city for anyone to have a go at). Was pretty good but I've forgotten who they are - I think I have a business card for them somewhere. :-)

Descending the mountain, we wanted to check out the "Underground City" (a bunch of shopping centres joined by tunnels so locals can still shop during winter). Unfortunately, being a public holiday... nothing was open! :-( So we just wandered around downtown for a while. Had dinner with M&M again (they cooked very tasty BBQ salmon).

Tuesday

This was our 'culture' day - we headed down to Old Montreal, wandered around the Old Port for a while and then headed to the Pointe-à-Callière Museum to discover the history of Montreal. It was really interesting - but we spent so long wandering around the museum that we got a little tired... (told you that B could sleep anywhere!). Once we pepped up again, we learnt how to be a pirate, found out a little about Marco Polo and then continued exploring Old Montreal.


The Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica is incredible - the columns, paintings and altars inside are beautiful. But the Chapelle du Sacré-Cœur (Chapel of the Sacred Heart) is even better.. all carved out of wood! Such a lovely and calm place.


Wednesday

Decided to head to the islands - we started on Île Sainte-Hélène and Bruce walked on the Grand Prix track (oooOOOOoooh - it's used as a cycle track when it's 'off-season', so even taking a photo on the track was a little dangerous). We investigated the Biosphere, which was created for the 1967 World Fair Expo, took some photos and then relaxed in the park for the afternoon (I managed to write some postcards whilst B had a nap).

After relaxing, we decided to find Habitat 67, which was also created for the Expo. It looks incredible.. and the crazy box-shaped flats are now just people's homes! Unfortunately, Habitat 67 is on the other island, Île Notre-Dame and we decided to walk from there back to town... it's a LONG way! We got to a main road eventually and managed to get on a bus instead. Phew!

Thursday
After a relaxed morning, we headed out to the airport for our short hop to Toronto.
Stay tuned for next-time..
;-)

p.s. Dee, I had to take this photo for you.. ;-)

Church street cruising

This will be my last post for a couple of weeks. On Tuesday Clive and I are strolling down to the Eaglehawk station to go to Melbourne then to the Docks ready for our Island cruise. Getting excited now that I've finally packed. No internet access but I've given Mum the ship phone number in case of emergency. I hope Lisa and Carolynn will keep the garden watered. I've planted some tomato seedlings.Please pick and eat the snow peas.
All the lawns look tidy. Weathter here lately has been beautiful so I've packed for summer. I hope I'm not disappointed. We've booked a glass bottom boat tour and snorkelling in Vila for Glenn's birthday. We'll celebrate on your behalf Glenn. I'll be sending birthday wishes your way.
Keep fit and well all of you. Love from Mum.

From the Madhouse

And it's a hat trick from the Madhouse. That's definitely a record :)

So, our week. Monday, housework before heading to the indoor heated pool with the Parkers. Belinda, Tahlia, Ella and Josh. Jared came along to meet Jake, they ended up going for a bike ride and Jared stayed at Jake's the night. Both Trinity and Daria went down the water slide - first time for Daria. We ended up taking Tahlia home to get clothes, then she came home with us for a sleepover. We set up the foam mattress in the girls' room on the floor, lucky there was room!

I baked a cake for Damien Monday night and decorated it Tuesday morning. You'll have seen the TMNT cake on Facebook. We dropped over after lunch for cake and coffee, just a quick visit so Damien could get back to work.

Wednesday - October 1st! Carolynn and Jarrad came over and took the girls for a day of playing Disney Infinity 2.0. Now they want one LOL  Of course. While they were gone I got into the girls room and tried to make it tidy. Still things to sort out, but I got a photo. I picked up Daria from calisthenics and we went to Spotlight for a bit before picking Trinity up.

On Thursday we took a drive to Kyabram Fauna Park. Jared drove and we followed the Parkers. It's about an hour and a half, so similar to Ballarat. The kids had an absolute ball! They were a bit afraid of the emus that were wandering around, though Ella was very game and fed one. Since we were pretty close to Tatura we took a drive to visit my friend Natarsha - she's one of Carolynn's God parents, a friend from Uni. Tatura is about 30 minutes from Kyabram and just over an hour from Bendigo. Jared got a few hours up :)

I was going to spend Friday doing housework after taking Jared to catch a train to Melbourne at 8.30am to meet up with Scott. I really need to sort out my craft corner and my bedroom. Instead I got the kitchen tidied up before Julie-Anne asked if I wanted to take a coffee break and meet her at the Marketplace. I needed milk anyway so it sounded like a good plan. We had lunch and met her around 1.30pm. Mitchell and Daria couldn't sit still so we took a walk around Big W... for about 2 hours. By the time we were heading to Safeway for groceries it was after 4pm and Jared was on his way home from Melbourne. I figured I'd wait around instead of heading back in to pick him up (the Marketplace is right next to the train station after all). We had a look at Riot - the art and craft shop, and Jared met us at the car when he got in.

Daria wanted to catch up with her friend Adam so we took chicken, salad and bread rolls over there on Saturday for lunch. We ended up staying the whole afternoon, I'd gone shopping last year after Halloween and picked up heaps of clearance stuff. Danielle and Darren do Halloween, we went last year for a bit of a party and to hand out treats, not that there were many trick-or-treaters last year. So Danielle, with a little help from the kids, decorated the house. It was a gorgeous day! 25º! Of course we tried sending the kids out to play but they also spent time on the computers. In preparation for Halloween we watched Beetlejuice, I love that movie. Daria and Adam were busy outside for most of it, I don't think they saw it at all. Trinity and Connor were on the computer but saw bits of it. The girls were going to stay for a sleepover but Trinity changed her mind. After watching a couple of movies Darren called me and I went and picked her up around 11pm. We picked Daria up this morning (Sunday) and were there when Jared called to say mum had come over with the lawn mower. Jared mowed, mum did the dishes for me then tidied up the bookshelf while the mower cooled down then she went home with it. So - thanks mum :)

Back to school and work for us all tomorrow. It's been a fairly productive and yet fun 2 weeks, I think we've fitted in lots. Now it's back to the boring stuff LOL

Bye Bye Buick

Today Len Thomas and two friends came to check out the Buick. They loved Les's shed and didn't think it was messy (but I know Les would have thought so).
Not yet sure if Len will buy it or his friends Les and Frank. If Len buys it, he'll pay Les to do the work to get it going. Either way, they said consider it sold for $10000. May be two unhappy wives about the decision especially as Les and his wife are selling their house in Gordon and downsizing.
Since I'm heading off on Tuesday and Len will be away from mid October to early November, it won't be gone for a while yet.
One down and I hope once the space is there, I'll get into the shed for more decluttering.
The Torana is on the market for $10000 as well if there's any interest out there. At least with Clive to drive, the Torana can get an occasional run.
Len took us all out to lunch afterwards so I have had an enjoyable day.
A man here donates his alpaca fleece to the Spinners and Weavers and he had dropped off this year's on Wednesday. bit of networking at the Stadium lunch and I had a visit from a lady interested in purchasing some alpaca. Now have $20 and four fleeces to take. Since we still had some of last years, I think that's good. I didn't have a chance to check with anyone else, so executive decision on the price.
My modelling at the Stadium was fun and I had a phone call to ask me to do more next Saturday for another group. Decided I am too busy at the moment, but would be available another time.
Tonight I dance at Eaglehawk and needed a plate so carrot cake (from a packet) is ready to go. Also made biscuits for my visitors which were well received. They loved Les's diary of working on the Buick as well.
Mowing was on my agenda too but I think that can wait until the weekend. Tomorrow is very full up.

Happy Birthday, Damo

We haven't put birthdays on here for a while.. let's start that up again too..

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAMIEN!

Hope you had a great day!
*lovenhugz*
    -d&b-

Hokushin Camp

As you probably all know, last weekend was the Hokushin Camp here in Bendigo. It's taken a lot of work, including a few last-minute surprises, to get it all ready, but in the end the weekend went off without a hitch. Even the weather was as kind as it could be.

Here's a breakdown of what happened.

Friday I cleaned out the car, grabbed the last of the groceries for the weekend (about $350 worth all up), kissed the family goodbye and headed out to Axedale. I was there at 2, got the keys, put away the food and gradually people started showing up.

We had three from New Zealand, a busload of South Australians, and 8 or so Melbourne guys and Joel from the ACT. Everyone paid their fees, found beds (except 4 of the Melbournites who were sleeping in swags under the stars) and we headed out to Axedale Tavern for dinner. It was really nice! Back to the camp, and somebody brought out a couple of bottles of sake, some beer, and we sat around the fire and socialised. I'm lucky in that I knew almost every member of the camp - most of these guys only knew their fellow students, but they were soon all friends.

I toddled off to bed around 11pm, looking forward to sleep that never came. I was in a room with a snorer. Not a light snorer either.. it rattled the windows and scared off the wildlife! I did not sleep at all.

At about 4am I gave up, had a shower (there was one in our dorm) and went out to turn the hot water on for the shower block outside. I had breakfast at about 5am. Joel, my fellow dormmate, wasn't far behind me - he obviously hadn't slept either. The snorer had a wonderful sleep 0_0

At 7am Ali, one of our students, brought out bagpipes and woke the camp to the dulcet tones of Amazing Grace. Everyone came groaning out of their beds and gathered around the cold coals of last nights fire, no doubt warming themselves with its memory.  We did morning meditation before breakfast, then split up into instructors and students, and we instructors headed to Axedale Public Hall to train from 9am - 12pm. Seriously.

We got back to camp  to see the Win News cameraman was there, so we organised a few vox pops, had certificate presentation, and then lunch. Unfortunately I was outside helping out the cameraman while the students powered through 42 bread rolls, a kilo of sliced meat and maybe 500g of cheese. I got back and there was one roll and one slice of cheese left 0_0
Then Takeo cooked up 10 packets of Mi Goreng noodles.. but I was outside again trying to sort out whether we could go to Atisha Centre, and by the time I got back in that was all gone too! I ate an apple.

After lunch it was back to training. I had to leave early to take Takeo out to the train station and get him on the shuttle bus to the airport, and once I got back it was 5pm and things were winding down. The Melbourne crew cooked up a bbq for us, and of course there was more sake and beer and the like floating around, but I didn't stay up too late this time.

I was feeling pretty tired and sore by this point, which is probably why the flu managed to catch me. Saturday night I slept terribly again, with chills and a headache, and I was up at 4:30. Once again I turned on the hot water for everyone, had a stupidly early breakfast, and sat around praying for panadol. I did make the most of the time by cleaning up, washing dishes and sweeping out the hall.
That said, while I was feeling bad there were people who had just headed off to bed at 4 and not even the bagpipes could get them up :) We did morning meditation again and some tanden exercises.. like situps but using internal core muscles below the bellybutton rather than the abdominals. They're easier than situps.

Without Takeo here we decided to make things easier on Sei Shihan (he's 80 years old this year) and split the group up between Shihan Tao, Sensei Raymond, Sensei Joel and myself. We trained from 9 - 11 or so and then everyone came in needing water and sunscreen. Tao gave a great lecture on the history and purpose of Iaido, and then Cheryl turned up like an angel bearing 10 packets of bread rolls, more meat, cheese, and cake! It was so good to see her and the kids, and not just because it meant I actually got food this time around ;)

A few of the instructors had mentioned that they'd like to train with Shihan Tao, and Sensei Raymond had left just after lunch, so Joel and I took the juniors out to Axedale Hall for the afternoon. We trained from 1 - 5.. again, that's a long time. We had a half hour break in the middle and people were just lying down on the floor :) All the Melbourne guys left around 5pm, and then we made far too much pizza and pasta for everyone to eat.  I was expecting voracious appetites after a second day of really intense training, but I think everyone was just too tired to eat.

After dinner was a massive clean up - mopping floors, wiping benches, etc. etc. I knew people wanted an early start so we couldn't leave it until Monday morning to do it all. I reckon I spent a couple of hours or so just cleaning, after cooking, and with the flu. I wasn't happy :)

Joel and I both headed off to bed at about 8pm while the others sat up watching samurai movies - I consider that proof that it's harder to teach than learn ;) Thanks to panadol (Cheryl is wonderful) I actually slept okay on that final night.

Monday was final cleanup, which went fine, and everyone headed off. Shihan and one of the other students, Ijah, were both going to the airport on the same shuttle bus in the afternoon, so I took them into town to the Chinese Museum and gardens, and the Bendigo Art Gallery. Then out to Beechworth Bakery for lunch, and dropped them off at the station.

Then it was back home, finally, to some much appreciated hugs with Oscar and Lily. I can't thank Cheryl enough for looking after them while I was away, and for delivering food and panadol, and not complaining even once. She is a Saint!

So that was my weekend. I'm back at work now, thankful that I have a job that involves sitting down. Unfortunately tomorrow I kick off the Great Cycle Challenge, and next week I'll start Saturday Iaido classes as well. Ah well. Ganbarimasu!

Church St chatter

Did consider waiting until Wednesday so I could be first in October. Where has this year gone?

I've been......dancing. Eaglehawk on Thursday without Clive since he had worked at the Races Wednesday and again at the racetrack on Thursday and Friday. Sat out a few dances.It is so much better to have a partner. On Friday we went to Kyneton, Saturday Majorca (as passengers) and Sunday afternoon again as passengers but with different people.We had a fabulous weekend.  Tonight we'll go to Spring gully. Tomorrow Nana and I are going to a lunch/fashion parade to raise money for Cancer in Kids Association(CIKA). I'm modelling a couple of outfits with hats. I'm yet to see the hats.
Weather has been great mostly. We did have 34mm of rain and my roof leaked severely. Garden was thrilled as it has been very dry. I just watered some tomato seedlings and picked snow peas. I have one tomato plant that survived the winter. I have it in a pot in the fernery and hope it will give me very early tomatoes.Just needs to last through a couple of weeks of me going off on a cruise.
The cruise and planning what to take etc is another thing I've been doing. I have managed to prune the wardrobe a little while looking through my options.. Some to the op shop and some to friends.
This morning I called on Lisa to check out he bunks and the painting. It looks great. Stayed a few hours to help with the lounge cleanup. It was the only time I had. I warned the girls to keep it tidy until I return to check again at the end of October.
Len Thomas may be interested in the Buick. He is bringing a couple of friends to look. If they can't make it Thursday we'll leave it until November as I go away and then he goes away.
Keep up the posts everyone.I love to read what you have been doing.

Madhouse Mumblings (aka Shaft St S#!%)

School holidays, maybe that's why I have more time to post - or Dayna guilting us all into updating more regularly LOL

It's been an eventful week. Monday involved more tidying attempts in the living room before visiting Julie-Anne and Mitchell. Julie-Anne had gone outside Sunday night to find a wild duckling following her cat. The kids had a great time playing with it while I helped Julie-Anne with some decluttering. I left her with 2 full bins, luckily it was bin night. Tuesday we had lunch with Nanna, Mum, Clive, Damien, Oscar, Carolynn and Jarrad at the Stadium (Schweppes Centre) just down the road. We came back here for coffees and to show off the tv unit. Wednesday was another day in the girls' room, I got rid of a lot of the stuff under the beds. In this case "got rid of" means either "stored in my room" or "moved to another part of the house". Having said that, I filled a couple of bags for the op shop and put them in the boot of the car as I went. Then I had to take it all out to go to the supermarket because we ran out of pet food and milk, so we did the week's shopping. Then the bags went back into boot...

Thursday I went and looked at the bunks/loft with storage style beds. They are awesome! The people selling them had a trailer and I chatted to the woman while her hubby and Jared packed up the beds. He followed us home and helped us put it all into the entrance (which I'd also tidied up by storing stuff in the laundry, did I mention we have too much stuff) We were home by lunch time so I took the girls' old beds apart and started cleaning walls before we visited mum. Mum made a comment about painting while the room is mostly empty like we did when we moved Jared in to the room that had been Carolynn's. It sounded like a lot of work... but she was right, I hate the colour of every room in this house. It's dirty white. Every wall in every room is the same, except Jared's room obviously, it's now a nice pale apricot. And now the girls' room is pink. I took the paint from mum's that was labelled "Brew" (Peach Blossom, laundry and bathroom had been crossed out). I added some pink I'd had mixed up to paint the dolls house (still not done) and went to work. I did ask Ian first, but I told him I was going to use the same colour as Jared's room... it's far more pink. So I did the cornice with more pink. If Ian isn't happy I'll paint over it when (if?) we move out.

Trinity slept on the floor in the living room and Daria slept in with me Thursday night. I started the second coat on Friday morning before taking the girls to the Botanical Gardens to meet Julie-Anne, Mitchell and some of Mitchell's friends for lunch. We took salad, cheezels, biscuits and sipahh straws (milk flavouring). Between the other mums we had chicken and salad rolls and the mums got coffee. It threatened to rain but over all it was a fantastic day. Until we went to leave around 3pm. Julie-Anne's car wouldn't start. I stayed with her while she waited for the RACV. The guy said it was probably her starter motor, he couldn't jump start the car, and he offered her a tow. It would be free to their East Bendigo shop where they'd put together a quote, or between $88-95 to tow to a place she chose. She rang her dad for advice and he said he'd hire a trailer and get the car home so they can work out what to do. Trinity sat in the car playing with my phone while Daria and Mitchell rode Mitchell's scooter up and down the path. We got home at 6pm after a drive to pick up a borrowed tent and drop the 5 bags of stuff at the op shop on the way home. Thankfully during my busy run-around morning I'd thrown apricot chicken into the crock pot so I did a bit of rice in the microwave and tea was done. I did the second coat on the walls after tea, it's not a great job but it's a vast improvement on how they looked before.

Saturday saw me finish the cornice before breakfast, then we had to start thinking about packing the car to head to Ballarat. Pat and Bree have an amazing new house/property and threw a house-warming party. Sophia and Marius had 3 friends each staying. The plan was to camp out, they have a big paddock behind them and in the middle of that was a bonfire. We set up a tent in the back yard, it's huge too. In the end the girls (Sophia and friends) stayed in their tent and we slept in ours - everyone else ended up inside, including Carolynn and Jarrad. Marius and his friends didn't like the wind. It was a very cold and windy night but the girls still thought it was fun - if scary. Sophia and her friends are around 14-15, and our Jared was the only teenage boy - he certainly seemed to enjoy the attention from 2 of Sophia's friends LOL

Sunday we headed to Tamara's. She was pretty stoked, and had lasagne, chicken, salad, garlic bread and a huge amount of fruit. We had lunch and tried to work out what's wrong with their laptop before heading home a bit after 2pm. We got home and moved the parts of the girls' bed in to their room and put it all together, with some help from Carolynn and Jarrad. We ordered pizza for tea and watched last week's episode of Dr Who, then it was bedtime. For me as well, I was asleep by 9.30pm.

The girls are asking what we're doing today - more cleaning up!

Will try to update next week!

A Hop Across the Pond - New York

I've had an interesting week - caught up with a friend on Monday; spent Tuesday at a team meeting in London and got a free make-over on the way to the train station (Kat & I decided to do some window shopping and turns out it was a fashion week event and shops were all doing special things - like giving out gin or offering make-overs); Thursday we were at a careers event in Neath Port Talbot; Wednesday and Friday I spent in the office but there's still a lot to do.  I have a LOT of events coming up in October, so I'm going to have to try really hard to write my updates. And even harder to update the Six Month Challenge site - because I actually have to DO something before I can update that one. :-)

In the meantime, here's the next little bit of our trip...

New York

We arrived late on Wednesday night. It had taken ages to get across the border - a bus load of people all having to go through immigration and have papers checked! Luckily we'd booked a late-ish flight, so it didn't matter that we were half-an-hour late arriving at the airport.

We stayed in New Jersey, just across the river from Manhattan so it was really easy to get in and out of the city (and check out the view from the bus stop below!). We spent very little time in the apartment - there's just so much to see and do in New York.

We had three full days in New York City, and we walked a LOT. We bought the City Pass and tried to do everything that was in the booklet...

• We went up to the top of the Empire State Building - twice (once in the morning and then again at night - I forgot to collect my tripod both times.. oops). 

• We walked through Harlem and along the length of Central Park (the park itself is about 4km!), stopping for lunch on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (about half-way along the park). We made sure we checked out the art whilst we were there - it's an incredible collection. 

• We saw the longest running show on Broadway (Phantom of the Opera, for those who didn't know) - we were in the second row, so it was almost like we were IN the show. :-) 

• We took a cruise that went past the Statue of Liberty (but there were so many people on the boat that you couldn't move from your little plastic seat). 

• We shopped in Macy's and window-shopped in Tiffany's (but didn't have breakfast in the jewellery shop), visited Grand Central Station and spent some time in Times Square.

• And on our last day in New York we managed to fit in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the American Museum of Natural History AND the Guggenheim Museum. 

Looking at it all like this, there's no wonder we were really tired by the time we got to Montreal.

But you'll have to wait till the next instalment to find out what we did back in Canada. :-)

Gordon St Gossip

Hey all, a quick one from us too :)

Ossie's enjoying school. He doesn't like that Lil gets to stay home while he has to go, but when he's there he has fun, and has been building up his confidence - he's finally playing with friends who aren't Daria ;) He got a cold on Day 1 of the school holidays, of course, but he's getting past it now so hopefully he can enjoy the second week a little more. They're off to the Melbourne Zoo with School next term.

Lil's been going to playgroup and the Library for Toddler Time and generally singing, dancing and enjoying herself. She can't decide whether she's "only little" or "a big girl now".. it depends on whether she wants to do something (like play on the iPad) or we want her to do something (like pack up her toys) - that said she does like helping with the cooking and even gives washing dishes a go.

I've been pretty focussed on Iaido. Numbers have dropped a bit in class (down to 8 or so, so still acceptable) but it's possible the people who have left will come on Saturdays when I start that class - a few have said Tuesday is a bit tricky for them. This weekend is the camp. It's been a learning experience organising it to be honest - I was hoping I would just have to organise the accommodation and bookings, but it's turned out I've had to work out a lot more (food, payments etc). It's the issue with having a "committee" I think - more than 3 or so people and everyone thinks someone else will step up and do the work. Once we're past that I'll think about how to handle trying out a kid's class on the Saturday as well.

Chez has been volunteering a lot at Ossie's school, working in the canteen. I for one enjoy the odd spare dim sim or dino nugget she brings home ;) She's also been going to Pilates on Fridays, which means her legs are sore just in time for the weekend. And of course the full time job of "looking after Lily" which may also include participating in the aforementioned singing and dancing ;)

Oh and it turns out the government have been massively underpaying our Family Tax Benefit so we got a big boost at the EOFY. We're going to buy a car! At some point in the future ;)

GORDON ST GANGSTERS OUT YO!

Who's the slackest of them all?

Ok, so the last time I posted an update was December 2013... really?

So Daria's in Prep and Trinity is in grade 3. I've been working but now it's school holidays again so I'm off until the kids go back to school and then we've got about a month or so until the contract will be up. I've had to join a job network but they paid for me to do my First Aid certificate. I basically go in once a month for a 10 minute "nothing's changed, see you next month" until my job finishes. Then she's aware that I'm unlikely to work through the summer holidays so once January ends I hope to find something. It's all because now I'm a single parent and my youngest has turned 6, they've made it all much harder on single parents with Centrelink and Job Networks and agreements. I get a whole one day's notice that I have to go into Centrelink. Once Daria turns 8 I'll be put onto Newstart Allowance so I'm hoping by then I'll have something permanent. The stupid thing is that all they've done is made things harder on the people that want to do the right thing - the ones that they should be looking at is the single parents having baby after baby while on the pension. It's just so frustrating.

Anyway...

You'll have seen on Facebook that my team at work (the HIPPY Lippies) are trying to raise awareness (and of course money) for women's mental health. I've been having a bit of fun with the different colours, but from the start I knew green, yellow and orange were going to be awful. I guess that's why they have 6 shades of pink - I only bought 2. The link to my donation page is here -

Liptember

I've also been using mum's old crock pot a lot since borrowing it. It's great! I've got fudge in it at the moment, takes about 2 hours to cook but since I usually ruin it if I try the 'fast' way this is much better. When I'm working I try to organise myself enough in the morning to throw stuff in the pot, then give it a stir when we get home. It's much easier than trying to sort out tea at the end of the day, I wish I'd borrowed it sooner. But of course storage is part of the problem, I needed some bench space, and even now the crock pot hasn't really got a 'home'.

On decluttering - I've bought a new (secondhand) tv unit which prompted a big rearrange of the living room. Next step will be the girls room, as I'm planning to get them some bunks with storage that I found on Gumtree. I'm at the point where I'm over the constant mess so the girls have been warned, I will ask them to pick their things up, anything left on the floor goes in the bin. I'm also filling op shop bags... see how long it takes to get this house under control LOL

That's about it I think. I'll try to update on Sundays but I may need reminding :)

-The Roberts-French Madhouse.

A Hop Across the Pond - Niagara Falls

Lovely to talk to Mum and Lisa today (and Jared - briefly). We all agreed to update the Bandwagon more frequently - and this goes for everyone. :-) Even if it's just a sentence to talk about the week. Okay?!

A Hop Across the Pond

We've done a heap of stuff since July - the most exciting thing was our recent holiday to North America. We spent two weeks and visited four cities: Niagara Falls, New York, Montreal and Toronto.

Niagara Falls

We stayed on the Canadian side, along with all of the other tourists! The Falls are amazing - every single minute there's enough water going over the Falls to fill one million bathtubs.

In order to make the most of our two days, we bought an Adventure Pass. The night we arrived we collected our passes (they didn't have enough 'adult' ones, so ours had "ADULT" scrawled in black marker pen over the "child" label on the front), donned a blue plastic poncho and headed to Niagara's Fury. We learnt a little about Niagara's history and got very wet (one of those "4D" movies). We spent some of the evening watching a fab sound and light show that was in the park opposite the Falls. The lights were projected onto water jets and looked amazing.

The next day we walked along the Whirlpool Rapids, went on the Hornblower - the boat that goes to the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls (we got a red plastic poncho), and did the Journey Behind the Falls - that is, we wandered through some tunnels and looked the water rushing past a couple of openings (and we got yellow plastic ponchoes). We also had a good look around Niagara Falls, including all of the (slightly tacky) 'man-made attractions', like Ripley's Belive it or Not, or dinosaur mini-golf. We didn't go into any of the attractions - it was fun enough to walk along the street and people-watch.

Our second night we spent in the Hilton hotel with views of the Falls (the first of our three 'fancy' things booked on our trip). It was great - we even got to watch the fireworks from our room! And they were below us!!

All in all, Niagara Falls was very touristy but a fascinating natural beauty. Just remember to have patience and that everyone else is there to see the same things as you. ;-)

I'll post this now and update on the other cities very soon.
The (very very abridged) photo album for the trip is here.

Just a Sec..

Hey everyone,
I've probably told you about my one second per day video project. Well, here's the first full year!
Enjoy!

*hugz*
-d-

Weekend adventures

Back in June, Toby sent me this link: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/06/bounce-below-trampolines-wales/

Giant trampolines in an old slate mine! How much fun does that sound?

So we found a free weekend (not an easy thing lately) and booked tickets. Since the venue also has a zipline (flying fox) course, we booked that in too. We have had such a fun weekend!!

I caught the train to Baglan to meet Bruce after work - we both finished a little early so we could get on the way before peak hour. It was a three hour drive to Dolgellau (doll-geth-lie) and our 16th century B&B. We stayed in room 6, which may have once been a stable... but we didn't see any babies in mangers or wise men on our journey. 😁

In my opinion, the Lechwedd Slate Cavern is one of the most fun places in Wales! On arrival we swapped our print-at-home tickets for coloured wristbands and got into bright red jumpsuits (hehe..  jumpsuits..  for jumping!) and collected our helmets. We were loaded into a tiny mine train and were shuttled into the old mine. After a short safety briefing,  we popped on our special booties and headed on to the trampolines.

It was SO MUCH FUN ! In fact, I think I'll say that again for emphasis -  it was SO MUCH FUN!

It's only a little like being on a regular trampoline - there were about 50 of us on there at any time,  so the "floor" is never where you expect it to be and, as a result, you spend a lot of time falling over. It's hilarious. Even when you get some good jumping going on, it just takes someone going past to either take away your bounce (awww) or bounce you double (woohoo!). This happens even when you're sitting on the mats taking a break from the jumping. SO. MUCH. FUN! And actually really tiring too! :-)

Trying to move around the mats takes a lot of effort (see bouncing comment above) and to move between the levels is even more of an adventure! There are 'tubes' (snakes) to descend - made out of the same netting as the mats, you jump in the top and 'slide' down to the next level. You need to cover your face when you jump into the hole so you don't end up with friction burn on your nose. :-)  To get back up a level, they have 'tunnels' (ladders) - more like rock climbing than a ladder really.. similar to the tube but with ropes or something to hold on to (and to give a bit of help with your footing). It takes quite a bit of muscle power to climb the tunnels! They also have a giant spiral net that is a little easier to get back to the middle from the bottom level.

You get an hour on the trampolines and this is exactly the right amount of time - just enough for some bouncing, some sitting, some snakes, some ladders and some lying on the mat recovering (looking through from the top or bottom level is really cool - you can see everyone on the other levels, as well as the slate cave around you!). After our alloted hour, we were packed back on the little train, taken out of the mine and returned the jumpsuits.

Unfortunately we didn't know that you could take your phone (and suffer the consequences if you drop it), so we don't have any photos of Bounce Below. We didn't make the same mistake with the zip lining!

After lunch it was time to don another red jumpsuit. This one was slightly more waterproof (only slightly) and was covered by a strange harness. The harness had a wooden 'seat' in it, so it felt really weird walking (I felt like a duck.. quack quack) and trying to sit down (sitting on a seat on a seat.. weird!!). Safety gear in place, we piled onto the bus to be taken to the first zipline. Unfortunately, the weather had taken a turn for the worse so we couldn't see any of the spectacular views that they had seen for the previous five weeks straight! Bah! Actually, we could have been at the Three Sisters! ;-) 

I think we missed out on some of the thrill because everything was grey, but it was still good fun. There were three zip lines - mountain, moor and another thing starting with m..  the first one (mountain) was apparently the longest one - but it was so grey! It was like flying through a cloud - I think I caught sight of the ground only once. The second one was faster and probably my favourite - it was low enough to see a little of the scenery (or maybe the weather had cleared a little) and it was fast! Woohoo! The third and last one was alright but it was raining again and that took away some of the enjoyment.

There was a lot of waiting around during the zip line session - the whole thing took about two hours but I reckon we were on the lines for less than a few minutes! The cool thing about it was that there were four parallel lines, so B & I joined two others and could have races (not that you really had any control over how fast you went).

By the end of the day we were both cold, wet and fairly knackered, but it was definitely a fun day (and one that we might repeat in better weather). It was a really lovely weekend (especially since I'll be working half of the weekends in July as well as the first weekend in August).

It seems I've gone on a bit.. oops.. so what have the rest of you lot been up to?

Iaido update

Thursday I got the good news that Hokushin Shinoh Ryu Iaido members were exempt from the Victorian sword laws. This is a massive win for Hokushin - until now each of our members had to organise their own Chief Commissioner's Approval ($170 per year) or join a collectors club (which may not cover martial arts), but now by paying their annual membership to us they're legally covered.

It's a massive weight off my shoulders, making it possible for people travelling from interstate (for the camp) to bring swords with them, plus simplifying the whole process for our Victorian students. It's also a big motivation for our students to keep paying their membership since if they stop their swords become illegal ;)

Looking at the to-do list from my previous Iaido post I've also printed and distributed the membership cards, got the order from Japan (and ordered some new cheap swords from the US), and the mid-year seminar is in two weeks.  Once we get through that I'll turn my attention to getting the camp sorted out. Oh and I've taught in Melbourne twice now, and will look to doing it again after the seminar.