Our lives are now dominated by the building work. The week started with an inspection by the geotech engineer. It is his job to ensure that the foundations are dug correctly so the house doesn’t slip down the hill and end up in Pittwater. He came, he looked, he failed the depth of the piles. Back came the builders, this time with pneumatic drills and hacked away at the rock. Finally it was passed and the preparations for the pour could begin. First the plumber…

Followed by the concrete-ers…

eagerly watched by our boys…

Ben, still in his pyjamas and about to be late for school!

Before the concrete can be poured, the area had to be inspected by the certifier, it is his job to ensure that the builders are building according to the regulations and the council plans…

After a bit of discussion and some clearing out of the pile holes, he passed the preparations and the pour went ahead.

We now have a floor.

Food is also still a big part of our lives, with Rose creating imaginative recipes using ingredients that Edward is allowed. This week was pear cup-cakes…

Last week’s talk about aubergines (egg-plants) elicited a request for an aubergine recipe. Our favourite, although sadly currently off the menu as it uses tomatoes, is Egg Plant Parmenter, from our good friend, and ex-Tasting Australia Director, Ian Parmenter.

You can see the recipe on the ABC website, we add a bit of chilli!

The building work is really getting underway.

The underpinning is finished – the house should now stay up – and the excavations have been dug.

It wasn’t long before we had a flat area with footings carved out ready for the the slab.

The rather odd shapes under the house are the various sections of underpinning which will soon be hidden by the new room.

The excavations produced far more rock, clay and earth than we were expecting. It is now all piled up on our lawn…

We aren’t too sure what to do with it all, perhaps some retaining walls and terraces?

Once the footings had been dug…

a series of holes were drilled. These are to create piles that need to go down to rock. When they started they had no idea how far they would need to go. Fortunately, they hit rock quite quickly.

Other News

Rose has been harvesting some of our aubergines…

and we heard this week that Edward has become a school finalist in the Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition. He has written a speech about becoming an Australian and what it means to be part of a multicultural society. He will be speaking to the school next week and then takes part in the regional finals in a couple of weeks.

We have been given details of walks around Sydney and have started ticking them off. Last week was South Head’s turn; it is the southern headland at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. We took the bus down to the city and the ferry out to Watson’s Bay. We had arranged to meet some friends at various points. Shaista and Zia joined us on the ferry and we expected to see Nino and his family at the lighthouse. Nino (et al.) were a little late and finally phoned us to say they had arrived and were standing next to the lighthouse. As we were also standing next to the lighthouse, we were surprised that we couldn’t see/hear them. They were standing next to Macquarie Lighthouse, the next one down the coast!

Despite not meeting up with them until much later in the day, we had a lovely walk. The rain we had anticipated didn’t materialise…

and we learnt about the military uses of the headland at various points in Australia’s history.

Looking out over the entrance to the harbour…

The house extension is progressing slowly; the underpinning is well underway, with concrete walls now holding the house up.

It is being done in three stages; two down, one to go. We hope to have it finished by the end of next week and then the excavations can start.

The boys have attended their school disco. This semester the theme was Pirates and Princesses; we were relieved that they both decided to go as pirates…

And the new food (Happy Food as we call it) is also going well. Ben is learning how to make bread…

Our aubergines have flowered again and are now dripping in fruits; unfortunately, they are not allowed in Edward’s restrictive diet. But Rose and I will enjoy them.

After two years of planning the building work has truly started…

The first job is to underpin the existing house. When this house was built, they didn’t believe in ‘foundations’, they simply laid bricks down on the ground and built upwards. Before we can start to excavate the ground, proper foundations must be put in place. The wall was carefully divided in to 6 x 1m sections, and two sections at a time will be dug out and filled with concrete. This means that there will always be at least a 2m length of ground holding up the building, while the 1m sections are being replaced. The work got underway…

but, instead of digging out sections 2 and 5 (leaving 3&4 to hold up the house), they dug out 2 and 4, leaving only 1m of ground to hold up the house. The structural engineer arrived on Friday and said “Oh dear”! He then tried to reassure us that it would be fine… “as long as it doesn’t rain”! They are due to pour the concrete on Monday, we are hoping it’ll hold until then.

Ben’s bike riding is coming on well…

and our bread making skills are im-’proving’…

The house appears to have been taken over by Moshi-monsters… both boys have become addicted to them…

Is there any cure?

Yesterday was an eventful day. The boys were very keen to take their bikes out for a ride, so we headed off to Winnererremy Bay in Mona Vale.

Ben decided that the time had come to remove his stabilisers (training wheels)…

That was crash number 3 of the day. Edward started things off; he was riding round the cycle track and rang his bell to warn a woman that he was approaching. She, a little startled, tried to jump out of his way, but jumped right into his path and he hit her full on. Both went sprawling on the ground. No one was (badly) hurt and with a little remedial work to the handlebars, he was soon back on his way. Ben then crashed into a wooden fence post and then into another rider (see video).

I left to go to the supermarket, while the boys and Rose headed off to the playground. As I was getting the trolley in the supermarket, I received a text message “Come back, Edward hurt”. A few minutes later, I drove into the park to see a group of concerned looking people surrounding Edward, who was lying on the ground with blankets. He had raced to the playground, somehow managed to forget to put his brakes on and cycled into the metal gate at full speed. He smashed his head into the gate post and his groin into his handlebars.

Fortunately, he was (as always) wearing his helmet and the handlebars had hit his upper-leg rather than any more tender areas.

The hospital looked after him very well and confirmed a minor head injury and soft tissue damage to his leg.

He has a couple of cuts next to his left eye and is finding walking a little difficult. However, the prognosis is good and he is very cheerful.

In other news

Following Edward’s allergy clinic advice, we have changed his bed and mattress. He now has a bunk-bed. It arrived and we decided to paint it before assembly…

Fortunately, it was a hot sunny day and the paint didn’t take long to dry. Assembly started…

and it wasn’t long before the boys took over…

The building work officially started on Monday. It kicked off with a visit from the plumber who came to see where the sewer was and declared that he needed to move it and would return later in the week. We then had fierce rain storms on Tuesday and Wednesday, which lingered on into Thursday. On Friday 3 builders arrived and ‘broke ground’…

After much discussion they declared that they couldn’t do much until the plumber had moved the sewer. Phone calls took place and the plumber is due here next Monday. As Wednesday will be a holiday, the builders said that they would be back on Thursday… Hopefully there will be more to report next week!

Edward’s new diet is going very well. We are all following it and have cut out all of the chemicals that are now routinely added to food. It makes shopping in the supermarket interesting as there isn’t much that we can buy. We have been experimenting with new and inventive recipes and are getting quite good at making things. Rose has created some new cakes…

Yumm

We had plans to get up before sunrise, to walk up to one of the headlands and to watch the Easter sun rise across the ocean. At 5am, Rose and the boys were fast asleep and I couldn’t bring myself to wake them… besides, it looked quite overcast; we slept in and had a very relaxed Easter breakfast…

By 8am we were up and had eaten enough chocolate to last us, so we decided on an Easter morning walk. We headed up the road, down to the beach, along the beach, over the headland and had a swim at Bilgola…

Click on the map to get a bigger version of our route or click this link to see a google satellite image of the area.

By the time we got to Bilgola, the boys had, of course, got completely soaked. To enable them to walk home in dry clothes, they had to keep their swimmers dry and ended up swimming in their under-pants…

We wish you all a very happy Easter.

In other news…

The lead up to Easter, and the end of the school term, was very busy. An Easter basket had to be made (by Ben)…

and taken to school…

There was the annual pyjama day…

and Year 3 (Edward) had their ‘Lessons Afloat’…

We had time for a visit to the Armoury Playground at Blaxland Riverside Park…

where we had a picnic…

The final day of school and the Easter Parade; Ben took part in the year 1 dance…

Edward’s new diet is going very well. We think that we see significant improvements in his health and well-being and are hoping that it isn’t just wishful thinking. He has been very good about not being able to have his normal food. To help him, we are all trying to stick to the new regime. The most important of which is that we have cut out all preservatives, additives and colours. I think we all feel better.

Finding things that he can eat is quite a challenge. We now cook/make almost everything from scratch, including bread and cheese…

The cheese has been a particular success; recipe available on request.

Today is our 17th wedding anniversary. It is hard to believe that it was 17 years ago that we were standing in the aisle in St. Nicholas’ Church in Porlock Weir saying “I will”. At 11:30 am on the 1st of April, when neither Rose nor David had arrived, I suspect that many (or most) of the guests were thinking “are we April Fools?”. We have spent the day celebrating… well… I mowed the lawn, Rose pruned the shrubs, we cooked some food and we took the boys to the beach. I like days like this.

The last couple of weeks have been very busy:

David is in the middle of collecting data for his PhD, the more he collects the more he realises he needs…

Big excitement… on the day that the new iPad was launched, people were sleeping on the pavement in the city… we went to bed and in the morning a TNT delivery brought one to us… much easier.

It launched in Australia several hours before the rest of the world so, I am happily holding one of the first ones ‘in the wild’. As you can see, I didn’t hold it for long…

Harriet returned from her adventures ‘up north’. Sadly she was only with us for two nights, which only gave us time to get a flavour of her escapades. We were pleased to hear that she has fallen in love with Australia and has promised to come back soon. The boys were very sad to see her go…

Another highlight was a visit to the Harry Potter exhibition, which included a ride to the ‘Leaky Cauldron’ aboard the ‘Night Bus’.

We managed to get Edward an appointment at The Allergy Clinic at The Royal Prince Albert (RPA) Hospital. They did a very thorough series of tests, which included having 45 needles stuck in his arms…

We have preliminary results and are now waiting for some blood tests. He has been put on a new set of medication and a very strict diet, which forbids tomatoes (which he loves) and very limited amounts of fruit… He is doing very well, coping with a lot of new foods and tastes.

And so, to this week, the school athletics carnival; both boys took part…

Unfortunately, Edward missed his race, so had to race with the 10 year olds. Needless to say, he didn’t win!

Edward attends an acting class every week, and this week was the end of term performance. It was a set of improvisations; he was part of a team of four called ‘The Vampires’.

It was a fun evening. Lots of Australian dramas are filmed around here, so the judges were actors from TV shows such as ‘Home and Away’. To our surprise, Edward’s team won two awards.

After Ben’s birthday, and his party, we have been busy making and using his new toys and games, including a science kit…

Life goes on, the boys are getting bigger…

Last weekend, we drove up to Palm Beach and walked up to the lighthouse. Finally, the track has opened; we no longer have to use the smugglers’ steps – although we still used them to come down.

The boys still enjoy pasta and are getting quite good at making it…

…and eating it.

Our thanks to our friend Anna who has kindly made us members of the Campos coffee of the month club. We are sent a bag of coffee each month, this month it is India Balmaadi Estate Organic which is soft and mellow, and makes a great crema…

And, finally… the chillies… We have now harvested over 600… with lots still on the plants.

We said goodbye to Harriet and she set off up the coast.

The next day we heard from her that they had got as far as Newcastle and then heard nothing for a week. Yesterday we got a text message to say she was OK, but no information on how far she has got; no doubt we’ll get all the stories when she gets back here in a few weeks.

This week included the ‘Back-to-School’ Barbecue… I wasn’t too keen, but the boys were very excited and dressed appropriately.

We all had a good time, caught up with friends and ended up being the last family to leave. During the event, we invited several friends to supper the following night. The weather was lovely; we ate outside.

Rose’s veggie garden is still producing well, we are harvesting about 100 chillies per week and the aubergines are now ripening up…

Ben had an exciting birthday on Thursday. He awoke to lots of presents on the breakfast table. Thank you to many friends who took the trouble to send packages; he was very pleased. ‘Thank you’ cards are being written.

After school on Thursday, he invited his best friend Alex round for tea and Rose made cupcakes.

And on Saturday he had his Birthday Party.

The guests we all so grown up, where did our little Ben go?

Rose made Ben’s favourite cake… chocolate.

Lots of party games, no one was sick and we had no tears. A success…

and the party finished with all the children whacking a monster piñata.

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.