Harriet in Sydney

Posted on 16 February, 2012 by David

For the past week, we have had Rose’s niece, Harriet, staying with us. It has been lovely; an extremely easy and helpful house-guest.

She has looked after our boys, including reading to Ben on the top of his new bunk-bed…

We took her to see ‘Summer Bay’ (really Palm Beach)…

We visited the ‘Pier Diner’ (actually The Boat House) and walked out along the pier…

and managed to squeeze in a visit to our favourite café ‘Seasoned’.

We dragged her down to the city, via Manly…

out onto the harbour…

and visited the Opera House, where we joined the hordes of other tourists taking photographs on the steps.

A visit to Paddy’s Market (where Edward and Rose bought new cases for their iPod and iPhone respectively)…

followed by a quick stop at Darling Harbour, which took us a full circle back to Circular Quay, where we headed back to Manly and to out favourite seafood restaurant – Garfish.

On Monday, Harriet looked after the boys which gave us time to visit Edward and Ben’s new school teachers and then to head down to the City, where we met up with our friend Ian Parmenter; in Sydney for one night promoting the Tasting Australia Festival. It was lovely to see him again and we had a great meal at Bistrode CBD…

In Harriet’s hectic Sydney schedule, she still found time to visit…

Newport Beach…

Bilgola Beach…

and Ku-ring-gai National Park, where she took in both;

West Head…

(we live just to the right of the picture)

and Bobbin Head…

It has been great having Harriet here with us; we will all miss her. She leaves tomorrow to go ‘walk-about’ in a camper-van with 3 school friends. We look forward to hearing about their adventures when she gets back in four weeks.

Visitors

Posted on 11 February, 2012 by David

This week we have had a number of visitors. But, first… the story of the bunk beds continues.

After more phone calls, we were promised delivery at 3:30pm on Friday. In anticipation of this, we decided to go ahead and dismantle Ben’s bedroom…

We drove to Ikea to collect new furniture and set about building the new room. At 3:30pm two things happened; the bunk beds did not arrive and I realised that I had picked up the wrong desk from Ikea. More phone calls and another trip to Ikea. By 6:30 the new furniture was built and there was a knock on the door; the beds arrived!

By 9:30pm Ben’s room was useable…

On Sunday a group of PhD candidates from the University came to lunch.

Agnes was very good and played with the boys on the trampoline…

And after a huge lunch, we walked over to Bungan Beach for a swim…

The next visitors were boys from school. Both Edward and Ben had a friend over and they all played together…

And, our latest visitor – Harriet, Rose’s Niece from the UK, arrived on Thursday. The weather still isn’t too good; fortunately there was a break in the rain and Harriet visited Bungan Beach on Friday.

And, then in the evening we took the boys and Harriet up to Snapperman Beach for fish and chips.

Although it was rather grey, the rain held off and we had fun eating and fighting off the seagulls.

Our veggie garden is still producing food. At the moment we are harvesting aubergines and chillies…

Summer… at last

Posted on 3 February, 2012 by David

On Sunday morning, a little before 6, Rose set off on a walk up the beaches. By the time the boys were awake and hungry, she had passed Newport, Bilgola, Avalon and was nearly at Whale Beach.

The boys set off in the car, picked her up and drove her the last bit to Palm Beach. We had breakfast at Seasoned Café; four years on and it is still our favourite place to eat in Sydney.

After breakfast we went over to the beach; Edward enjoys wearing a tie, even to the beach…

While the rest of us donned slightly more appropriate attire.

It wasn’t long before Edward was changed and we all enjoyed swimming in the surf.

Summer continued on Monday and after school Rose and the boys were too hot to go to the beach, so the old paddling pool was dragged out from under the house. Despite a slow leak, they boys had fun splashing on the deck.

Edward has started his training for Junior Master Chef and makes rather good banana smoothies…

Tuesday morning arrived and summer ended. After two lovely days, the rain came back and it has rained all week

Other news is that about a month ago, we decided that it was time for Ben to get a new bed. Careful planning and we chose a bunk bed and chose a supplier; we placed the order and were promised delivery on or before 25th January. We were very pleased when TNT delivered the bed on the 23rd, ahead of schedule. The delivery man brought in the first box, clearly labeled as box 1 of 3 and then said that that was the lot… “Where are the other 2 boxes” Rose asked… “Back in the depot” said the driver, “I’ll bring them tomorrow”. We waited, checked the on-line tracking and finally called TNT. We were told that box 2 was still in the depot, box 3 was on its was to Perth (a three day journey)!

After many calls to the supplier, they agreed to send another bed from the Sydney warehouse, it would be with us the next day and, to be sure, they engaged a different courier, Allied Express. Three days later, we called Allied Express who said that they hadn’t collected the bed yet, the supplier said that it had been picked up three days earlier… Allied Express had lost it. Many more calls and three more days and it was found and delivered… Hurray! Until Edward came home from school and noticed that they had sent the wrong size bed. More calls to the supplier… more apologies… more assurances that they would sort it out immediately. Next day an email came from the supplier saying that the bed would be dispatched in 4 weeks… arrrgh. More calls. No, it was leaving that day on a direct (door to door) service and it would be with us in the afternoon. It wasn’t. The next day TNT turned up with the bed. Hurray… err no, this was the one that had been to Perth and back, had been sitting in water for a few weeks and was completely ruined and mouldy.

But where was the door to door courier with the new one? We checked, it was with Allied Express again, and yes, they had lost it again. So, now on the 3rd of February and having had to wait in 7 times for couriers to turn up, we still don’t have Ben’s bunk bed. But we remain hopeful that it will be here before next Thursday when Rose’s niece Harriet arrives from the UK. The plan was for Edward, having given up his room for Harriet, to sleep on the bunk bed with Ben.

Australia Day

Posted on 26 January, 2012 by David

Today is Australia Day and also David’s birthday.

We have had a busy week. Edward came shopping with us and decided that he wanted fish for supper. He loves fish and was keen to have a whole one. After careful consideration, he made his choice and we prepared it for cooking…

A few minutes later it looked like this…

and Edward looked like this…

I think his worried look was more about the leaves than the fish!

He ate every last bit, stripping the bones and crunching up the head (although he decided to leave the eyes).

Last week was time for the boys’ holiday visit to the swim school…

Big news of the week was that Ben learnt to dive…

Other news is that we have had our first garlic ‘crop’ (well, bulb) from the veggie garden…

And that brings us to today, the birthday Australia Day…

In the middle of our summer, Australia Day is usually hot and sunny; the day people go to the beach or have a barbie (or both). We woke this morning to a wet grey humid day and it has been raining all day…

So, we stayed at home and celebrated by opening a wonderful bottle of sparkling Pinot Noir sent as a birthday present from our far too generous friend Joyce.

The boys put on shirts and ties and we had a good day learning some new card games…

Visitors from WA

Posted on 17 January, 2012 by David

We have been home for a couple of weeks and life is returning to normal.

The boys have started their summer swim school and David is back at University.

The weather has been ‘changeable’. Some days are glorious summer days, and all we want to do is wander down to the beach, and other days are wet and grey.

Last week our friend Caz from Margaret River, and her daughter Ebony, came to stay; sadly Tom couldn’t join them as he was working, diving off the Western coast.

We had a lovely two days, showing them ‘Summerbay’…

Photo by Edward

and playing in the park across the road from our house…

The three children enjoyed watching a 3D movie while the adults caught up on the last three years…

On Saturday, we went to visit Tracy and Mark and their two children. Our boys had fun playing and swimming in their pool. Edward is still enjoying documenting his life with his new camera and took this picture of Annabella…

Photo by Edward

By Saturday evening, David wasn’t feeling well, but despite that we all went down to the city on Sunday and took the ferry up the Parramatta River to the Olympic Park, where the boys had lots of fun at the Armoury Playground. David got worse and is now taking his first days off sick in three years.

Back at the beach

Posted on 2 January, 2012 by David

A quick supplemental posting…

Our garden is looking great. Thanks to Catherine and Anna for their diligent watering.

The chilli plants are looking particularly magnificent, with a huge crop developing…

We slept intermittently last night and by 4am we were up and about. By 9 we were on the beach. The weather is beautiful…

It’s good to be home!

Home

Posted on 2 January, 2012 by David

Our last night in the UK was with Rose’s parents and a series of siblings and cousins came to say “good bye”.

Our plan for the 30th was to get up early, pack and head off at 10am. Packing took much longer than expected and it was nearly 11:30 before we set off on the journey to Manchester. After a quick lunch stop in Crewe and a loo stop for Edward in Warburton Green we made it, in time to drop off the hire car. We then discovered that KLM had moved from Terminal 2 to 3. This entailed a very long walk via Terminal 1, partly in the rain to get to the check-in desks.

The flights were long and tiring. The transit in Amsterdam was swift, however, we had over 6 hours to fill in Kuala Lumpur.

In the centre of the airport, they have a small piece of ‘jungle’ which includes a short boardwalk; it was good to get outside again…

Despite the time of day, and the number of hours we’d been awake for, we remained remarkably cheerful…

Four very tired Ashes finally boarded the flight to Sydney.

We arrived in Sydney, on the morning of new year’s day, and there were no shuttle busses to take us up to the Northern Beaches.

We decided to see if we could manage all the luggage on the train. The boys were stars helping carry bags down two levels to the platform, onto the train, off the train and up two levels until we were at the bus stop at Wynyard, waiting for the L90.

We had expected the L90 to be quiet, thinking that most Sydneysiders would be nursing headaches after the NYE celebrations, but no – it was packed. We struggled on to the bus with our 11 bags, boxes and cases. Standing room only to Collaroy.

Finally we are home. The house is still here, the veggie garden looks a bit overgrown and we are happy to not be travelling any more.

Godalming/Guildford

Posted on 30 December, 2011 by David

Our post-Christmas treat was a trip to the theatre. We had discovered that the London production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was touring and there were tickets available for a performance in Guildford.

This gave us the opportunity to see Joani and Barry, sort out some ‘stuff’ that we’d left with them and to visit some of David’s old ‘haunting-grounds’.

(Note: Edward was given a camera for Christmas, and some of his first attempts are displayed below)

Joani and Barry were excellent hosts…

They provided entertainment for the boys in the form of Zumba Wii

and a visit to the “rec”…

On Wednesday, we headed into Guildford. We parked at the Artington (disappointed that the council had replaced the sign onto which someone had painted an ‘F’ at the start) Park and Ride…

We had an hour or two wandering round the shops, managed to buy the boys some shirts, trousers and shoes, had lunch (at Maccas) and then saw the excellent matinee show.

By the time it was over, it had got dark…

This morning, we stopped to ‘say’ a quick “hello” to Grandma and Grandpa…

… and headed back up to The Bolt Hole, to say good-bye to the family before we fly home tomorrow.

Christmas 2011

Posted on 27 December, 2011 by David

The Christmas celebrations started with a lunch party on Christmas Eve at Rose’s parents’ house – The Bolt Hole…

A late lunch merged into a 6pm drinks party with neighbours. The boys didn’t get to bed until late.

This meant that they slept through Father Christmas dropping off presents and didn’t wake until after 8.

After breakfast, the boys were allowed to open some of their presents. Ben started by discovering a Buzz Lightyear outfit…

Edward went next. He has started saving up to buy a digital camera, so was very excited to discover that he could now divert those funds to another item on his wish list…

The Toy Story theme continued throughout the day…

It was then time to help prepare the lunch, Edward was in charge of the Brussels Sprouts…

The service at Tuck Hill started at 11:15; we made it just in time. After an entertaining sermon, which included a demonstration of a Sylophone, we went to Gatacre for lunch…