Bugger!
Hi Guys. Well what a strange week this week has been. The kids have been on school holiday, but were feeling a bit pants at the start of the week, so they’ve taken things easy. On Monday, Paul and Sam were going to have a ‘boy’s day out’ at the Perth Motor Show. They headed off, happy as can be, only for Paul to phone me at 12 midday to say they were on their way home! They had got all the way there, Paul had paid $12 to park, then Sam said he didn’t feel well and could they go home? I think it was because I made him take his wallet and told him to treat Dad to lunch – such violent spending of his own money has never agreed with Sam! He did look rough though and spent the rest of the day moaning – sorry, recuperating on the sofa.
On Tuesday, they were feeling a bit brighter, so Paul took them to see Disney’s Shaggy Dog. It’s got Tim Allen in and is very funny – the kids loved it. Tuesday was Anzac Day (where everyone honours the fallen soldiers), and a public holiday. They are very strict over here and all the shops were closed, which actually makes a nice change…… until that is, it reached 5.30pm and you realise you’ve run out of tonic for your G&T! Purely medicinal, you understand. If I didn’t have alcohol as the sun sets, I’d turn into a child-batterer of the worst proportions!
On Wednesday Sam spent $73 dollars on stationery to take to school!! Unless you’re Paul reading this – in which case, it was $7.30! He was going halves with Darcie, until she went to pay at the cash desk and only a moth flew out of her pink Gucci-like purse. Sam was gutted, but demanded reimbursement as soon as they got home. Then he continued to berate the young guy behind the counter for the cost of his stationery! ‘It can’t possibly have added up to THAT much – have you added things twice?’ I felt really sorry for the guy! He thought it was highly funny though as he assured Sam that was the correct price for 25 packs of felt tips and what did he expect if he couldn’t control himself in the fibre-tip aisle. I can relate to Sam on this one. I loved spending all my pocket money in WH Smiths and even now, I can spend hours with a stationery catalogue – that’s stationery – not one that’s not moving…… keep up, you lot! All that and he’s complaining now that he can’t find his pencil case and can we go back on Monday to buy a new one? Err – NO!
Thursday went in a blur, but we did go to see some swimming pool places just to get an idea on costings for the future. We should be able to get a BEAUT pool, fully fenced and paved (the surround – obviously! If the pool was paved, you wouldn’t get very wet now, would you?) for less than £15,000. I shall start saving immediately! Wonder if you can get one with Fly buys (the Oz equivalent of Clubcard points? For the amount we spend in the supermarkets, we should be half way there already!). We met with the builder on Wednesday night and we are almost ready for pre-start where you have to pick EVERYTHING prior to build – from colours of render, to type of handles on your lav!! This process can take up to six hours for the ditherers amongst us! I’m just going to let Paul choose everything – and then if it looks crap, it’s ALL his fault. What do you reckon? If I choose, I’m bound to have a recessive gene from my Dad that will surface when I’m picking paint colours and we’ll have the only tangerine coloured house in Western Australia! At least you’d find you way home after a few beers! Mum’s promised to post over Dad’s collection of brass plates for the interior, with his matching tables. They are currently in temperature controlled / disaster proof storage – that is what you call the loft, isn’t it Mum?
On Friday, Paul took the kids to 6PR Southern Cross Radio. www.6pr.com.au Follow the link to listen live – you might just catch our ad! They are running an ad campaign for us starting in a few weeks, so Paul coerced the sales guy into giving the kids a tour! They enjoyed themselves and the guy took them to see all the studios where the shows were being broadcast live from (had a bad vision in my head of Sam banging on the glass and moonie-ing the presenter to put him off – but Paul said he was very well behaved! He must have been as they were treated to Hungry Jack’s (Burger King) on the way home! The only slight disappointment was Sam thought he was going to have his own show and had already picked out a record play list for the ‘Sam Delaney Drive Time Hour’ Ooohh, an hour of Busted, Las Ketchup and the Cheeky girls – what more could the Australian public ask for??
Friday night we went for drinks with some lovely people we’ve met. We had a fab time – arrived at 5pm for drinks and nibbles – fell home at 11.30pm! Ooppss! Marc mixes a fab G&T – that’s all I can say in my defense.
One thing I must tell you about that cropped up whilst we were having drinks with our friends last night was the subject of rude words. Sam explained that Dad had taught him loads of rude words and that he could spell them too! ‘No you cannot!’ I challenged! ‘Can too’, he answered ‘FU*K – see, I can spell it!’ Great, I said, you can spell one of the most offensive words in the English language, but you can’t spell apple! ‘Yes I can,’ answered Sam, ‘A-P-P-E-L’. What have we done – we’ve created a monster. In the words of Homer Simpson ‘D’OH’
Today (Saturday) was spent once again checking out the local A&E healthcare facilities for my darling husband! He’s got an irregular heartbeat now (to add to his collection of ailments – mind you that must mean we’ve made it to ‘I’ in the medical dictionary (I’m hoping!) 9 down – 17 letters to go J ) The Doctor there hooked him up to an ECG machine and he spent the day being examined and watched before they released him with a prescription and a referral letter for his GP. The Doctor was dead dishy! I put lippy on and everything to go and pick Paul up at 5pm and almost shouted at him when I realised he was waiting for me outside A&E! Waste of a juicy tube, that was! Our lives are anything other than boring, aren’t they!
Next week should be interesting as we’ve booked Adam into daycare for two mornings a week. It’s called ‘Boomerang childcare – you’ll be back!’ and the staff seem very nice. It’s compulsory for all staff to have a moustache, but the ladies wear it well! We needed to do something as Adam has been getting more and more clingy ever since we moved – to the point where Paul is now convinced that if it was at all possible for Adam to crawl back inside the womb, he’d be in like a flash! I can’t even have a wee without him trawling the house for me shouting ‘Mummy’ at the top of his bony lungs and carrying a lantern that swings as he walks. It is beyond a joke now. When he was feeling poorly last week, the others weren’t even allowed to talk to him. If they tried to cheer him up, or offer him a drink, he just screamed like an old lady being molested at the bingo! I shall, no doubt, cry like a baby after I’ve dropped him off on Tuesday, but if his experience at the daycare centre in Perth is anything to go by; he will give an Oscar winning performance – heart breaking sobs one minute, then happy as Larry, ram-raiding in the Little Tykes bubble car and picking up girls flashing their knickers on the corner of the sand pit within the time it takes for me to get home. I shall plant a CCTV camera in his lunch box and watch the evidence back. At least if it doesn’t tell me when he stopped crying, I’ll be able to send the footage to Crimewatch OZ to help them catch the ram-raiders!!
I’ve got to go now. For some strange reason the space bar on my keyboard has started squeaking like I’m squashing a small mouse every time I hit it. It’s very un-nerving and it’s interfering with my comic timing!
Good night everyone – see you in the morning!
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Well, where do I start with our news for Easter?
The week leading up to Easter we decided to hire a camper van and visit Monkey Mia (a world Hertiage site) www.monkeymia.com.au where you can paddle with dolphins that come up onto the beach, but after an entire day spent on the telephone trying to arrange accommodation at campsites and drawing a complete blank, we had to cancel it. I think if our business plans fail, that’s what we’ll do – open a camp site. At least if we’re empty the other 51 weeks of the year, we guaranteed to be fully booked at Easter as everywhere in WA seemed full!
The worst bit was that we’d told the kids and they were really looking forward to a break (almost as much as we were!). So Paul got on the phone to the Flight Center and twice the budget later, we were booked on a flight to Sydney! We were travelling on Saturday to return on the Wednesday, late in the evening – fab! Proper shops, people and restaurants. Yippee! But wait! What if we like it more than WA? As we only every visited Perth prior to our visa application, what would we be like if we liked Sydney more? With the type of visa we are on, we have to live in WA for the first 4 years at least. How frustrated would we be if we found somewhere we liked more????
Anyhow, excitement took over and we threw a fortnight’s worth of possibilities into a case and headed for the airport. We fly with Virgin Blue a ‘low-cost’ no frills airline. They weren’t bad, but there were NO frills at all. All food had to be paid for and the new entertainment system that could be hired for the journey had ‘manufacturing issues’ and wasn’t available. So we had a four hour flight with three very excitable kids and a packet of crayons.
Yes, Miss Parcel really did wear her ears and tail to fly to Sydney!
When we arrived it was dark and we had a 45 minute taxi ride which took us over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and gave us our first view of the Opera House. It looked great all lit up and twinkly. Unfortunately, when the taxi driver asked us if we wanted to go via the bridge, we should have realised it was a scam as it probably added another 20 minutes to our journey to the hotel and the taxi bill then came to $100! Nice view, but it wasn’t worth that much!
We were staying in Manly, a beachside suburb to the North of Sydney. It was nice – they had a promenade and it felt like a cross between Spain and a UK coastal resort on a good day – OK a VERY good day! It’s quite a trendy area with lots of couples/or maybe with one child that is SO pampered and protected it is unreal. The restaurants are quite trendy too, with cracked pepper on your breakfast sausage and freshly squeezed ‘jus’. But it made a nice change to having to drive ten miles to pick up a takeaway and having more than a choice of pizza or chicken – they even had an Indian - but it’s still not the same :-(
Darcie poses by the famous bridge.
So, on Sunday we ventured into Sydney and saw the Opera House at close range and the bridge from every angle – unfortunately, Sam wasn’t old enough to climb it as you have to be ten or older. I think Paul was relived – both for the fact that he would have had to of climbed it with him and he doesn’t ‘do’ heights, and also for his wallet which would have been considerably lighter if Sam had insisted! We went on the monorail that took us on a scenic tour round Sydney (I think it only had 6 stops in total – it was a bit like Groundhog Day as I think we’d gone round twice before we noticed we were going past the same landmarks!). Adam loved that – especially when he looked down and saw the train lines below – he froze with excitement. I hate it when he does that, I’m sure I could snap him over me knee – he just goes rigid! I remember Sam did that one day going the pre-nursery. He had a complete paddy and wouldn’t get in his car seat. He went completely stiff as a board, so I karate-chopped him in the tummy, he crumped, and I managed to get him safely installed into his seat! I don’t know where I learn these nurturing mothering tips – certainly not from a Miriam Stoppard book – perhaps I should write a book of my own with all the things that the books don’t tell you that are invaluable to know – I consider myself an expert on most things!)
Sam by the Opera House
So we got off the monorail at the markets and Sam haggled for a remote control flying saucer for $16 (that he flew in our faces for the rest of the weekend!). Nothing else was worth buying – it was like being in Hong Kong – all the stall holders were Chinese and it was the same tat they were selling there for more money.
We headed off to Darling Harbour where there is a lot for the kids to do. Sam and Darcie hired a peddalo for fifteen minutes. How hilarious was that! The two of them went round and round in circles and as the guys running the stall weren’t paying attention and were relying on the kids to come in when their fifteen minutes were up, Sam and Darcie eventually navigated back to the shore after 1 hour, 20 minutes! Sam made the mistake of putting Darcie in charge of steering (don’t you remember the boat incident?). They had lots of fun and we got a chance to sit and have a coffee, before they were off and moaning about the next thing they wanted to do/buy.
How much fun can you have for $12?
The next day we stayed around Manly and the kids played on the beach and Sam hired a boogie board. The waves were very big and the ‘safe’ swim area kept getting smaller and smaller as the surf lifesavers kept moving the flags closer and closer together. In Sydney over the last week they’ve had freak high tides where the waves have been over ten metres high. Luckily they’d calmed down a bit, but they still looked too rough to me! Adam and I snuggled under a towel whilst Sam surfed and Paul held onto Darcie for dear life so she wasn’t swept out to sea like a Little Miss stuffett-Mermaid.
Then, Monday night, disaster struck as Adam went down with a tummy upset. I have never felt so sorry for a chamber maid in my life as I did in the morning! Our room had a cloud in it! I’m not kidding! It’s own layer of Adam-induced fug. He had a very high temperature, so we spent the day round the hotel. We did have a table booked at the Sydney Tower for lunch, but we had to postpone that until Wednesday – fingers crossed Addy would be up for it…… We have learnt lots about little things we want for our new house on this trip also. Scattered between our photos of the kids by the Opera House is a picture of a sink we like, or a balcony (how sad are we!), but it’s made me realise no matter how chic or trendy, I am NEVER, NEVER having white bed linen as after two days it would be a relief map of illness, bed wetting and assorted stains. No, give me a busy floral pattern anyday – hides a multitude of sins. Hey, white may be fashionable, but a pattern is like me, built for practicality, not style!
Wednesday came and he seemed brighter. Still on lots of calpol though. We made it into Sydney and up the Tower. www.sydney-tower-restaurant.com God, that thing’s tall! Paul made a scene when he refused to sit by the window as he had turned green…. The food was naff, but the view was fab! Then, in true ‘curse of the Delaney’s’ fashion, the revolving restaurant stopped revolving! Eventually someone wound it up again, or put another 50p in the meter and we started up again. Only to have the piped music play ‘Bright Eyes’ Paul’s all time saddest song, to be followed by ‘Bridge over troubled Water’. Could they make us any happier?
We headed down from the Tower to take a boat trip round the harbour. This was great, apart from the fact we were ‘invaded’ by Japanese tourists who were all over the boat like fleas! Everywhere you turned, there was a big set of teeth, a pair of glasses and a camera in your face – and they are SO rude and loud! One of them almost stood on Adam’s pram to get that vital two inches of ‘lift’ to get the Opera House at a better angle! That’s when I went down with the lurgy and christened the boat in my own fashion! Thanks, Adam!
Sam's on the right - in case you were wondering!
Luckily after a quick rest at the hotel it was time to go to the airport. Stopping off en-route to say fairwell to Sydney in my own way, we drove at break-neck speed in a taxi being driven by Stirling Moss. I tipped him grandly by filling my plastic carrier bag as we pulled into the departures section – well, if he hadn’t driven like a looney, I might have made it to the terminal.
The flight is longer coming back due to the route. Sydney airport was particularly busy and even the pilot commented that we were being taken on THE longest taxi route in Australia to get to the runway – it felt like he was driving to Perth! Then we had a head wind that added another half an hour onto our journey, so it was going to be five hours, 15 minutes….. and about 2½ hours into that, Sam threw up everywhere and spent most of the remainder of the flight in the toilet.
Oh well – at least we can say it was eventful! We are very glad to be back home though and Paul and I didn’t think much of Sydney. It’s amazing that after five months of life in Perth with no pollution, not a lot of traffic and less people, we both found Sydney smelly, polluted and lacking that ‘something’ that a big city has – maybe that’s Marks and Spencers? We were both slightly disappointed in it and would rate it well below London, New York or Rome. It’s got a few good tourist attractions, but it’s like the Monorail – once you’ve seen them, you’re left wanting more and it’s just not there. At least we have been and experienced Sydney for ourselves and certainly left our marks!!
Oh, and the Easter Bunny still managed to visit in the hotel room (before the illness – although I have never known there to be so much uneaten chocolate in our house!)
The week leading up to Easter we decided to hire a camper van and visit Monkey Mia (a world Hertiage site) www.monkeymia.com.au where you can paddle with dolphins that come up onto the beach, but after an entire day spent on the telephone trying to arrange accommodation at campsites and drawing a complete blank, we had to cancel it. I think if our business plans fail, that’s what we’ll do – open a camp site. At least if we’re empty the other 51 weeks of the year, we guaranteed to be fully booked at Easter as everywhere in WA seemed full!
The worst bit was that we’d told the kids and they were really looking forward to a break (almost as much as we were!). So Paul got on the phone to the Flight Center and twice the budget later, we were booked on a flight to Sydney! We were travelling on Saturday to return on the Wednesday, late in the evening – fab! Proper shops, people and restaurants. Yippee! But wait! What if we like it more than WA? As we only every visited Perth prior to our visa application, what would we be like if we liked Sydney more? With the type of visa we are on, we have to live in WA for the first 4 years at least. How frustrated would we be if we found somewhere we liked more????
Anyhow, excitement took over and we threw a fortnight’s worth of possibilities into a case and headed for the airport. We fly with Virgin Blue a ‘low-cost’ no frills airline. They weren’t bad, but there were NO frills at all. All food had to be paid for and the new entertainment system that could be hired for the journey had ‘manufacturing issues’ and wasn’t available. So we had a four hour flight with three very excitable kids and a packet of crayons.
Yes, Miss Parcel really did wear her ears and tail to fly to Sydney!
When we arrived it was dark and we had a 45 minute taxi ride which took us over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and gave us our first view of the Opera House. It looked great all lit up and twinkly. Unfortunately, when the taxi driver asked us if we wanted to go via the bridge, we should have realised it was a scam as it probably added another 20 minutes to our journey to the hotel and the taxi bill then came to $100! Nice view, but it wasn’t worth that much!
We were staying in Manly, a beachside suburb to the North of Sydney. It was nice – they had a promenade and it felt like a cross between Spain and a UK coastal resort on a good day – OK a VERY good day! It’s quite a trendy area with lots of couples/or maybe with one child that is SO pampered and protected it is unreal. The restaurants are quite trendy too, with cracked pepper on your breakfast sausage and freshly squeezed ‘jus’. But it made a nice change to having to drive ten miles to pick up a takeaway and having more than a choice of pizza or chicken – they even had an Indian - but it’s still not the same :-(
Darcie poses by the famous bridge.
So, on Sunday we ventured into Sydney and saw the Opera House at close range and the bridge from every angle – unfortunately, Sam wasn’t old enough to climb it as you have to be ten or older. I think Paul was relived – both for the fact that he would have had to of climbed it with him and he doesn’t ‘do’ heights, and also for his wallet which would have been considerably lighter if Sam had insisted! We went on the monorail that took us on a scenic tour round Sydney (I think it only had 6 stops in total – it was a bit like Groundhog Day as I think we’d gone round twice before we noticed we were going past the same landmarks!). Adam loved that – especially when he looked down and saw the train lines below – he froze with excitement. I hate it when he does that, I’m sure I could snap him over me knee – he just goes rigid! I remember Sam did that one day going the pre-nursery. He had a complete paddy and wouldn’t get in his car seat. He went completely stiff as a board, so I karate-chopped him in the tummy, he crumped, and I managed to get him safely installed into his seat! I don’t know where I learn these nurturing mothering tips – certainly not from a Miriam Stoppard book – perhaps I should write a book of my own with all the things that the books don’t tell you that are invaluable to know – I consider myself an expert on most things!)
Sam by the Opera House
So we got off the monorail at the markets and Sam haggled for a remote control flying saucer for $16 (that he flew in our faces for the rest of the weekend!). Nothing else was worth buying – it was like being in Hong Kong – all the stall holders were Chinese and it was the same tat they were selling there for more money.
We headed off to Darling Harbour where there is a lot for the kids to do. Sam and Darcie hired a peddalo for fifteen minutes. How hilarious was that! The two of them went round and round in circles and as the guys running the stall weren’t paying attention and were relying on the kids to come in when their fifteen minutes were up, Sam and Darcie eventually navigated back to the shore after 1 hour, 20 minutes! Sam made the mistake of putting Darcie in charge of steering (don’t you remember the boat incident?). They had lots of fun and we got a chance to sit and have a coffee, before they were off and moaning about the next thing they wanted to do/buy.
How much fun can you have for $12?
The next day we stayed around Manly and the kids played on the beach and Sam hired a boogie board. The waves were very big and the ‘safe’ swim area kept getting smaller and smaller as the surf lifesavers kept moving the flags closer and closer together. In Sydney over the last week they’ve had freak high tides where the waves have been over ten metres high. Luckily they’d calmed down a bit, but they still looked too rough to me! Adam and I snuggled under a towel whilst Sam surfed and Paul held onto Darcie for dear life so she wasn’t swept out to sea like a Little Miss stuffett-Mermaid.
Then, Monday night, disaster struck as Adam went down with a tummy upset. I have never felt so sorry for a chamber maid in my life as I did in the morning! Our room had a cloud in it! I’m not kidding! It’s own layer of Adam-induced fug. He had a very high temperature, so we spent the day round the hotel. We did have a table booked at the Sydney Tower for lunch, but we had to postpone that until Wednesday – fingers crossed Addy would be up for it…… We have learnt lots about little things we want for our new house on this trip also. Scattered between our photos of the kids by the Opera House is a picture of a sink we like, or a balcony (how sad are we!), but it’s made me realise no matter how chic or trendy, I am NEVER, NEVER having white bed linen as after two days it would be a relief map of illness, bed wetting and assorted stains. No, give me a busy floral pattern anyday – hides a multitude of sins. Hey, white may be fashionable, but a pattern is like me, built for practicality, not style!
Wednesday came and he seemed brighter. Still on lots of calpol though. We made it into Sydney and up the Tower. www.sydney-tower-restaurant.com God, that thing’s tall! Paul made a scene when he refused to sit by the window as he had turned green…. The food was naff, but the view was fab! Then, in true ‘curse of the Delaney’s’ fashion, the revolving restaurant stopped revolving! Eventually someone wound it up again, or put another 50p in the meter and we started up again. Only to have the piped music play ‘Bright Eyes’ Paul’s all time saddest song, to be followed by ‘Bridge over troubled Water’. Could they make us any happier?
We headed down from the Tower to take a boat trip round the harbour. This was great, apart from the fact we were ‘invaded’ by Japanese tourists who were all over the boat like fleas! Everywhere you turned, there was a big set of teeth, a pair of glasses and a camera in your face – and they are SO rude and loud! One of them almost stood on Adam’s pram to get that vital two inches of ‘lift’ to get the Opera House at a better angle! That’s when I went down with the lurgy and christened the boat in my own fashion! Thanks, Adam!
Sam's on the right - in case you were wondering!
Luckily after a quick rest at the hotel it was time to go to the airport. Stopping off en-route to say fairwell to Sydney in my own way, we drove at break-neck speed in a taxi being driven by Stirling Moss. I tipped him grandly by filling my plastic carrier bag as we pulled into the departures section – well, if he hadn’t driven like a looney, I might have made it to the terminal.
The flight is longer coming back due to the route. Sydney airport was particularly busy and even the pilot commented that we were being taken on THE longest taxi route in Australia to get to the runway – it felt like he was driving to Perth! Then we had a head wind that added another half an hour onto our journey, so it was going to be five hours, 15 minutes….. and about 2½ hours into that, Sam threw up everywhere and spent most of the remainder of the flight in the toilet.
Oh well – at least we can say it was eventful! We are very glad to be back home though and Paul and I didn’t think much of Sydney. It’s amazing that after five months of life in Perth with no pollution, not a lot of traffic and less people, we both found Sydney smelly, polluted and lacking that ‘something’ that a big city has – maybe that’s Marks and Spencers? We were both slightly disappointed in it and would rate it well below London, New York or Rome. It’s got a few good tourist attractions, but it’s like the Monorail – once you’ve seen them, you’re left wanting more and it’s just not there. At least we have been and experienced Sydney for ourselves and certainly left our marks!!
Oh, and the Easter Bunny still managed to visit in the hotel room (before the illness – although I have never known there to be so much uneaten chocolate in our house!)
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