Hello Blog fans.

Welcome to the upside down world of the Delaneys. It’s been an exciting couple of weeks since the last update – some good / some not so good! I have finally realised what Mum said all along is SO true; ‘you can choose your friends, but not your family’. Thanks to some pretty shitty emails from the UK, I now know who falls into both categories and have been upset by all the cattiness to be honest. I just think that people’s jealousy rears it’s head in some very strange ways.

I did think about not continuing with the blog as their attitude got to me so much – but this is for our benefit as much as the people who read it, and I enjoy looking at the old entries and seeing how much we’ve done - so 'knickers!' to them and I shall carry on…..

We’ve now ‘done’ the pre-start on the house. We’ve chosen colours and themes and roofing and guttering and block paving and …… the list seems endless! We’re just waiting for the list of updated costs for our extras to come through (should be the end of this week), and then we’ll have to sit down with a red marker pen and decide what things are reasonable in the price department, and what costs are ridiculous and need to be taken out. Paul ended up going to the electrical pre-start on his own as Adam and I were ill – and managed to spend $7,000 extra (love you!!) on electrical sockets, Foxtel/TV points and lighting. I dread to think how much the ‘proper’ pre-start extras list will be. We’ll just have to be ruthless and ask ourselves what’s needed and what’s completely OTT (like Paul’s outdoor projector and screen complete with surround sound and fold away screen! – of course, my spa bath is an absolute necessity! Do you know I haven’t had a bath since Easter when we were in Sydney. Our bath here is fun size – you can either wash your ears or your toes – not both at the same time). We still keep driving past the lot of land. I don’t know what we expect – probably that we drive past one day and the house has just appeared as if by magic! Perhaps we should plant some bricks and see if a house grows – just like Jack and his magic beans.

Last weekend we took the kids to a ‘Day out with Thomas the Tank Engine’ at Whiteman Park. How funny was that! Apart from the fact that I had a stinking headache and we had to leave early when I threw up in the car, the trains just had faces painted on them. Even Adam wasn’t fooled! We kept saying ‘look! There’s Thomas!’ and he would swivel round – look straight at the train, then look back at us like we were mad!!

Sam has been poorly again, he then passed it on to Adam, who passed it on to me. Paul is constantly bunged up with his nose problems anyway, so it goes without saying that Paul is feeling rough. Darcie still continues to defy medical science with her ability to stay ‘well’. I’m convinced it’s because her bedroom is such a pig sty – she must be subjected to so many strains of e-coli (due to the mouldy sweets under her bed) and MRSA (if it’s the flesh-eating type, it can come and gnaw a couple of kilos off of my legs) due to the pong from her socks, she is proving impervious to the bugs and lurgies. It’s as if we’ve bred our own super-human cast iron daughter – like a pink Dolly the Sheep.

Paul today phoned the GP surgery to make an appointment for the results of his stress test and 24 hour heart monitor. It was like a scene from Fawlty Towers when he rang. The nurse was ‘covering’ reception and Paul only asked if the results were in and could he make an appointment, when the nurse preceeded to tell him all the results of the tests and give him her diagnosis. She then said ‘it’s up to you if you want an appointment, it says here there’s no follow-up required’. Great, says Paul – what about the medication I’m on – it’s quite strong, I think it would be for the best if I came in to see a Doctor. ‘If you reckon’ came the reply. It was such a farse! You could imagine the whole diagnosis made by this nurse on the phone, only for her to realise that she’s been holding the bloody notes upside down, and it’s not an ingrowing toenail, but a brain tumor!! Needless to say, Paul has a Dr’s appointment booked for Thursday. We’ll see how that goes, shall we?

Darcie had an exciting weekend with her first ever sleep over! She loved it – I was a wreck! I just couldn’t settle all night. I wanted to phone on the hour, every hour, but Paul persuaded me not to. It just seemed so weird when I tucked the boys in that night and Darcie’s bed was empty – like there was part of me missing. I didn’t like it at all! Paul kept looking at his watch, saying ‘d’you know, that girl still isn’t home! She’s going to be in such trouble in the morning……’ I sat there all night with my arm at right angles to my body – Paul wondered what on earth I was doing, but I just explained that there was no chick under my wing! I had a partially empty nest. I don’t know how I’m going to cope when they’re out clubbing or (even worse) start driving. I might as well start the sleeping tablets now……. At least Sam’s love match has cooled off a little, so I’ll still have the boys at home (practising their trolley action and mincing along with tea and coffee) for a good few years, I hope.

I don’t think I’ve shown you much of Secret Harbour, have I? I’ll start now introducing you to the neighbourhood and posting some piccies of our ‘house’. The shopping centre is coming on really well – it’s due to be open for Christmas trading, and the Senior school is well under way too. Our new house will be sandwiched between the new primary and secondary schools – ideal for the kids, although not so well planned when we have 10 kids round at ours for lunch and they eat us out of house and home. So far, Secret Harbour has a chemist, gym, community centre, two primary schools, a Doctor’s surgery, bakery, two estate agents, a golf course, two cafes and a deli. A surf club, too many play parks to mention (we are finding new ones to visit after school all the time) and loads of cycle / running paths. Under construction are the new shopping centre (which will house a big Woolworths – amongst other stores), a senior school and a multi-million dollar sports centre. There is also a train line connecting Perth to Mandurah which will mean we can get to the city in under 40 minutes and they are extending the freeway and moving it further away from the coast road, so Secret Harbour will be even more lovely. There is also talk of a petrol station, but things are still subject to change with the Developers. Here’s the link to Satterleys (the developers) www.satterley.com.au/go/residential-estates/secret-harbour and the Secret Harbour Whisper www.secretharbourwhisper.com.au/ (like the Residents Association). You can also read the kid’s school newsletters, www.shps.edwa.net.au/newsletter/newsletter.htm

This was our piece of land when we bought it on our 'reccie' in February 2005.

And this is what it looks like now! The two houses you can see will be our neighbours! Our house will have to fit on that corner block in between!

This is the view of the shopping centre going up as taken from Secret Harbour Boulevard.

And this is the new Senior school - looks even better since this photo was taken!

I hope you all enjoyed your Bank Holiday and the kids are enjoying their half term. We’ve got a Bank Holiday next weekend (for a change) for Foundation Day. Don’t know what that’s all about, but the weather’s due to be nice, so who cares, we can take the boat out. The kids have still got another six weeks to go before they get another break from school – we’ve only done four since they went back after Easter! They are still loving school and Adam is settling at day care (somewhat begrudgingly!). The weather is starting to turn and last week we had our first storms of the season (actually there was a mini-tornado about 10kms up the road from us!). It’s supposed to rain for ten days solidly according to the weather forecast for late next week. I might have to live on the boat. As least I’d be safe if we had a flood – although I couldn’t steer the damn thing to get anywhere, I’m usually too busy being strangled by Adam to be allowed to drive!

Take care until the next update.

The Eagle has landed!!!

After a week of teetering on the edge, industrial wobbling and lots of apple crunching – Darcie’s first tooth has bitten the dust. To say she’s excited is a bit of an understatement, and now she’s forcing herself to stay awake so that she can feel how soft the tooth fairy’s wings are! Daft moo!

The hole does look like the size of the Grand Canyon, but I’m sure it will look a lot better tomorrow. I’m relieved. I was starting to think that she was super-gluing it back in before she went to bed at night. Sam’s sleeping with his head under the pillow to see if he wakes up toothless but with a wad of cash – I might do the same, but I’m hoping for a scale and polish :-) have you seen how expensive a trip to the Dentist is over here???

Adam’s had a haircut today and he looks about 12! What is it that makes kids look older, just by having their curls cut off? Here’s a picture of him on the sofa watching Kipper that he demands in a 20 decibel scream. Kipper is his favourite at the moment and I must admit, I love the catchy theme tune! Thomas is 'past' favourite – it is already in the Hall of Fame and goes without saying! He also likes the Tweenies. I’ve had to play him videos, as the Tweenies is about the only kids programme the BBC doesn’t export. We get Noddy, Balamory and Bob, but no Tweenies. I’ll have to open some boxes and get him some more videos out as even he must be getting fed up with ‘Gonna build a house’ by the 2ooth airing! We get The Wiggles and Hi5 a lot on the TV, but I just can’t help thinking how weird four grown men in coloured sweaters are. They should be sitting in a pub talking about footie, not doing stupid dances and singing about warm vegetables (Hot Potato is one of their 'classics'). They all go out in a boat together, on pirate ships together and perform high kicks whilst playing the piano. They all look fresh from a social services register if you ask me, and as for the Hi5 bunch – no one can be THAT happy all the time. They must all be on Prozac mixed with Vimto, I think.

Before you report me to Social Services, the mark by his eye is where he fell off the bed - yes, our 2 year old son has a carpet burn! Although he's lucky - with our naff carpet, if he'd have got any speed up and there had been a spark, the whole house would have gone up - not that it's cheap, nylon carpet or anything! Adam woke crying one night and came into our room, only to wriggle off the bed at 4am and make the mark by his eye. He now takes great pride in his war wound and points to it, telling people 'bed' and looking very sorry for himself. Aahhh, poor lambkin.

What else can I tell you about…… not a lot exciting I’m afraid. We’re making lots of enquiries about the house build, so that’s keeping us busy and we’ve had lots of business enquiries this week, which is fabby. Sam’s booked in for a soccer course that starts on Friday. Some of his mates are going, so he’s chuffed. Darcie’s class are having a Mother’s Day (which is Sunday in WA) art display on Friday with coffee and biscuits which will be nice. They have decorated the window of the classroom with painted hearts – they’ve done one each – and Darcie says they’ve been working hard on surprises that she can’t possibly tell me about…..unless I forget straight after :-)

Just a short update as I just wanted to post the pictures really. Oh, and before I sign off

Happy Birthday Ben and Beth

.......and

Happy Birthday Nanny D for Friday

Hello my little possums. How are we all? One at a time please……. that’s better. In answer: J: the cream will clear that up. F: never mind, there’s always next time and S: well what to you expect if you do it twice a night! Any more problems, feel free to email me – the Doctor is always IN J

This week has gone by in a blur yet again. If we moved to OZ for a quiet life, we woz robbed and want our money back as so far, it ain’t happening! Sam and Darcie went back to school on Tuesday and Adam went into daycare. He cried (as was to be expected). I don’t know if it was through missing me, or his mates of the train variety…. He can now tell you which train is which, by name. His favourite is Toby, but he also knows Thomas, Gordon, Percy, Henry and James by sight and squeals with delight when Thomas comes on the TV. They’ve got a ‘Day out with Thomas’ at a local train line in May and we’re taking Addy along. I think he may burst a blood vessel with excitement though, so he will have to be closely monitored throughout the day. If his excitement level exceeds fever pitch, I may need to sit him in a quiet place with a drink and a brown paper bag to breathe into, just to get his thrill levels down to a manageable state. He upset Sam last week when his Hornby magazine arrived by grabbing it from him and carrying it round the house – showing everyone and anyone who’d look the ‘twains’. Sam wasn’t impressed. He always likes the ‘send us a picture of your model railway’ page and was less than chuffed when he realised Adam had folded the pages. He likes to keep his back issues pristine! OCD in the making if ever there was!

Darcie went to play with her NBF (new best friend) Amy after school and they have plotted sleep overs and days out together at the weekend. Resistance is futile, they are like the Gestapo. They wear you down. Sooner or later, we will give in to them for a quiet life. This they know. It is our weakness. They work like this: It is 9pm. We are sat in front of the TV with a glass of wine zombie-like with exhaustion after the 20th time of putting them to bed. They creep up to us whilst we are engrossed in ‘Dancing with the Stars’ (which I don’t know why we watch anyway, because we can’t tell who’s the star and who’s the ‘professional’ dancer!), and whisper in a voice so quiet that it can only be heard with a laboratory strength microphone ‘is it OK if my friend comes for a sleep over on Saturday’. You naturally grunt ‘whatever – just PLEASE go to bed!’ which then they see as victory as you didn’t say no! I don’t know who teaches them this technique. I blame Tony Blair As this is probably the tactic he uses to get his policies through Parliament.

Sam has a NBF also (of the female persuasion!). He has been round to her house, got me to speak with her Mum on the phone and he has invited her round on Sunday to ‘play’. They are SO grown up and sensible, it’s fab. Sam came home with her phone number from school, phoned her up and she invited him round to hers. The next day, she phoned here and that’s when they arranged to meet up on Sunday. I won’t say too much as Sam will get embarrassed. Of course, Paul and I didn’t help this by pinning him down and singing ‘Puppy Love’ to him four times in a row. I was up until midnight yesterday, sorting out all of his embarrassing naked baby photos to show her when she comes over. I’ll teach you for embarrassing me in Tesco’s for all those years mate!!

Sunday update: Sam woke me with coffee and toast this morning and asked when he could phone his friend. I said that seeing as it was Sunday, he should probably wait until at least eleven. He said OK and then set the oven timer for an hour, so he’d know when it was time to phone!! Sam rang her and she said she’d come over at 12 – then Sam panicked that he didn’t give her our address! I’ll give her til 1, then I’ll phone her back; just in case. As it was, she phoned at 12.45 to say could Sam come and get her as she didn’t know which house we lived in. Before you could say ’no worries’, Sam had his bike out of the garage, cycle helmet on and was racing round the corner. They had a good time and went to the shops to get some lollies (sweets). They went out on their bikes, and when it was time for her to go home at 4, Sam rode home with her. Don’t you think that’s just SSSOOO grown up – for 8 year olds! I’m very proud of him. He’s told her Mum and Dad to come over and meet us for a glass of wine next weekend and he’s looking forward to introducing us all.

Oh, the funny thing is that Sams friend’s Dad works for Dentaway. Sam apparently asked him if he could have a look at his Nanny’s car as that’s got more dents that paintwork! Gotta love ‘em!

I’m already starting to realise what it will be like when Sam and Adam get girlfriends - no doubt Sam will spend more time with her family than he does with us. I know it’s silly, but I felt really sad about it in the week when he was at her house for an hour or so. Paul just said, ‘get used to it – that’s what it’s like for the mother of boys!’ I could have cried! I shall insist Adam is gay and never leaves home. He must have all his friends over to our house, where they can advise me on hair, make up and dress sense (gay men are good at that!). Sam’s got his NBF, Darcie’s got her boyfriend at school and Adam loves trains! There you go – problem solved! I think I’ll go out this week and buy him an anorak. It is getting chilly and they’re very practical.

We really need to get our fingers out with the house now as we are due for pre-start and have a date through of 23rd May. We’ve got an appointment with the interior designer who works for the builders next week (who says you can’t buy taste?). So hopefully she tell us what goes and what doesn’t. We went looking at kitchen appliances and tiles today. We want the whole of our bathroom tiled in an ‘expensive hotel’ polished porcelain look. We saw some lovely tiles, but when the lady gave us the price, we nearly keeled over. I only wanted to have some tiles laid in the bathroom – not pay off the National Debt of Papua New Guinea!! So we shall have to meet a compromise of form and function / taste and budget. It’s very easy for the budget to gallop out of control. A few grand here, couple of grand there, and before you know it, you’ve got the most expensive bathroom in the Southern Hemisphere. It all starts to become a blur after a while and you end up obsessing over the ‘right’ shade of beige! As the Ozzies say – ‘build a bridge……get over it!’ Once the flooring’s down, no-one will give a toss whether it’s from the ‘economy’, ‘budget’ or ‘FO expensive’ range. I’m sure it will all come together. I spent all morning Friday cutting pictures out of magazines of things that I like to give the Interior Designer an idea of my taste. Paul came in after two hours and berated me for my pictures of George Clooney and Pierce Brosnan and informed me that I was supposed to be collecting pictures of interiors we liked for the house. I had obviously misunderstood the brief!

We’ve got to get quotes for the air conditioning this week which will be expensive. We have to be able to tell the builders where the outlets need to go, so this is an urgent job. We are going for reverse cycle aircon, which also heats in the winter and heaven knows, we need that – it gets VERY cold here in the evenings. So much to do…….

Business is picking up slowly. Lots of enquiries, but most of them are over East which is a bit of a bummer. The radio ads start running this week, although they say they take four or five times of listening before the brain is actually triggered into acting on them (although this is Australia, so four or five may well be in the hundreds….. we shall have to see!). Our ads appeared in The West Australian last week and we had a few phone calls (admittedly less than we would have liked), but again, they say you have to allow for three of four editions.

Follow the link to hear the radio ads for yourselves.

As I write, Darcie’s first wobbly tooth is holding on for grim death! It has already turned grey, so I know it’s only the tiniest bit of gum that is holding it in. However she is torn between the pain of letting me pull it out and the fear of swallowing it and having to put the Tooth Fairy through the torment of searching through her excrement! I’m sure in the next 24 hours it will be out. I just hope she doesn’t swallow it – she’ll be SO disappointed at having nothing to put under her pillow. Knowing her she model a replacement from a piece of cotton wool, or write a long winded letter explaining what happened and why she still deserves the money!

I haven’t told Adam yet that he’s in daycare for the whole day on Tuesday whilst we go to see the designer. I’ll have to bribe him with something! On his second morning at childcare this week, he knew by my route that we weren’t going home and five minutes from the school, he started sobbing and shouting, ‘NO! DADDY! HOME! NOW!’ I tell you, he is not daft. He’s got a better sense of direction that my Mum! He did manage to give the young girl a wave goodbye when I picked him up on Wednesday – although if you looked closely, I think it was with his index and second finger extended in a V shape.

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