…………humph……………

Quite a frustrating tone to the update this week in as much as we paid the next instalment for the house and they have done exactly........... nothing since! Apparently they are waiting for some special T-bars and there has been a delay at the manufacturers and then they have to go for galvanising! We have chased the builder a few times and they say it’ll all be delivered in the next few days….. then the weekend arrives and another week elapses with no first floor. They have told us that the Floortech guys will be on site on Friday to get the scaffolding in place ready for the concrete to be poured for the first floor (although, they didn’t say which Friday, I suppose).

Other than the frustration over the house, everything else is plodding on towards the summer, Christmas and the school holidays. The kids are still knackered, we’re still working hard and Adam’s a little sod! We’ve booked the kids in for swimming lessons at a local pool; not for this pool the sane system of grading the classes by numbers – oh no! I had to go and register the kids as one Tuna and one Salmon! I felt like I was ordering lunch at the deli. The only had their first lessons last week, but Darcie was SO much better than she was in her VACswim classes in the holiday. She was like a little dolphin and did really well. Sam did great too. I think the weekly lessons are better for my lot as they don’t seem to cope very well with going every day for a week. This week I found out that they do two weeks of swimming with the school too this term, so they are going to be constantly wrinkled and smelling of chlorine next month.

Paul’s booked in for his Op on Tuesday (Halloween). We’ve got to be at the hospital ready to be admitted at 6.30am and he now needs an overnight stay. To be honest, I’m pleased about that. At least he’ll be monitored and looked after for 24 hours and by the time he’s released, I know he’ll be OK (ish!). I’m a bit jealous too! – the thought of 24 hours bedrest and no intruders creeping into your bed at night and then sleeping with their big toe up your nose for 5 hours – it’s almost worth having your nose broken and looking and feeling like sh*t for a week. Hell, I look and feel like that anyway (after the aforementioned bad night’s sleep, so a bit of bruising wouldn’t be so bad (o;) Next time you see Adam, smell his hair. He constantly has hair smelling of Paul’s armpit as that’s where he sleeps most nights! He goes to bed in his room, a mosquito must buzz in and wake him up (as he’s such a light sleeper) and as soon as his eye lids flutter, he’s out of his cot (like an extra from a 'Mission Impossible' film) and he’s in our bed before you’ve even noticed the covers being pulled back. I tell you, the Army ought to utilise his night time operation techniques. He could get into Baghdad without being seen, no trouble, if the way he trespasses into our bed is anything to go by. Perhaps he has those green night vision glasses in his room. I wouldn’t put it past him – probably swapped his Noddy for them in the playground. He’s nothing if not industrious! Good job Sam was never around in the ‘Swap Shop’ generation. I’d nip to Tescos only to find he’d swapped Darcie for a Mr Potato Head and probably replaced Adam with a ‘nearly new’ game of Twister.

The kids are getting more ‘aussie-fied’. Peppers are now ‘capsicums’, flip flops are most definitely ‘thongs’ and crisps are ‘chips’. Darcie’s voice is changing the most with the upward lilt at the end of her sentences. Sam’s still a bit ‘cor blimey, guvnor’ but he’s starting to get small Australian inflictions to his voice. He mumbles worse than ever and that seems to be a big Australian ‘thang’. Thankfully his use of the word ‘dude’ seems to have subsided a little and the novelty has worn off. Can’t say I’m sad about that one – I was getting mightily fed up of being referred to as ‘Mum Dude’.

Everyone’s gearing up here for the Melbourne Cup. It’s a horse race, and it’s massive! Every restaurant and bar are advertising special ‘Melbourne Cup’ lunches with big screens and betting available. I’ve been invited to a friend’s house and we have to wear our worst clothes (charity shop stuff) with a really nice hat. I don’t know if I trust them though. I’d probably turn up looking like Nora Batty and they’d all look like Madonna. It’s when they’d tell me to take my wrinkly tights off that the embarrassment would start and I’d have to admit that I actually wasn’t wearing any and I just had saggy kness (o:

I’ve attached a couple of photos; one of the new shopping centre that should be open for Christmas. You can clearly see the Woolies sign (Mum got really excited: ‘we haven’t got a Woolies over town – I love Woolies’ – she was very disappointed when I told her it was a food shop like Morrisons (o: ) The other photos show the new high school (which if it grows any bigger will need it’s own postal code!). It is apparently a centre for the Performing Arts and is going to be a speciality learning centre. That’ll come in useful with Sam no doubt and his thespian tendancies – I said THESPIAN!

The new high school - it didn't seem that close to our house in the beginning!

View of the school reception - impressive, eh?

That's the wonder of good old Woolies....

What do we want? 'A bottle shop'

When do we want it? 'NOW!'

Hi De Hi Campers!

Hope you are all well and have had a good few weeks since the last update. Not a huge amount to update on – I’m having to wrack my brains to think about what we’ve been up to as it’s 9.30pm on a Saturday evening and I have been partaking of some liquid refreshment of the grape-grown variety and my mind has just got up and walked out the door ;-) (plus I am old now!)

We have been plodding onwards and upwards. The kids have been on holiday for a fortnight and go back to school on Tuesday. This will be Term 4 and after an 8 week term (shortest of them all – hooray!), they will then break up for the summer/Christmas holidays! I must say, it’s been a long year for them. By the time it gets to their two weeks off, they are exhausted. We haven’t really done much this holiday though and concentrated on resting for the last term. Paul’s taken an afternoon off here and there and taken the kids to the pictures (they went to see Barnyard), Darcie had a sleep over at Amy’s and had another trip to the pictures (lucky duck!) to see The Wild. We’ve done lots of shopping and BBQ’s for lunch and it’s all been very relaxed and fun. The kids also did a weeks swimming course at the local pool through a scheme called VACswim. It's run during the school holidays and is based on kids all getting to learn how to swim for a dollar a day. The kids enjoyed it; Darcie had completely forgotten everything she learnt in her last classes and swam like a stone and Sam worked hard, but just missed out on passing his level. The classes were only half an hour, but every day we seemed to be in the pool for two and a half hours! The lure of the water slide and the rapids was just too great and everyday they emerged tired and wrinkly (we know how that feels!)

Paul fulfilled an ambition when we took the boat into Perth and launched it into to Swan River. He has always wanted to Skipper the boat right into the heart of Perth and he got to do that the other week.

That's a view of sunny Perth taken from OUR boat!

We did have some adventure though when we stopped for a picnic and beached the boat (that is to drive it up onto the sand, nose first). We secured it really well and went off for a barbie at one of the many playparks along the length of the Swan River; only when we came to leave, we hadn’t accounted for the tide going out…… The boat was well and truly grounded. However, after lots of strained muscles, the odd hernia and Paul falling into a hole in the sand and submerging himself (to which the kids and I wet ourselves with laughter – much to Paul’s disgust!), we managed to get all aboard and back to open water! We certainly have some ‘experiences’ on the boat! It was lots of fun though, and really gave us a ‘this is what it’s all for!’ feeling. The sun was shining, Perth looked beautiful and Paul was drenched! Life was cool ;-)
There is an X-rated version of what happened on the boat which is VERY funny, but Paul won’t let me publish it on the blog – you’ll have to email me for the full un-abridged version – tee hee!)

Let me think………. What else have we been up to…. Well, the AffinityOne website has been all updated and is very new and spangly. Paul has re-written it and we’ve had a professional company come in and update all the ‘behind the scenes’ bits, so it’s functioning a lot more efficiently. It’s never easy when the kids are on holiday trying to make phone calls and still run the business, but the kids have survived for another break, so we must have done something right (or not throttled them hard enough!).

The builders have cracked on with the house a little more (although the weather has been a bit pants lately and it’s rained a lot). We’ve had the summons for the second stage payment to be made, so this means that the scaffolding is on site and they will be getting ready to pour the second slab for the first floor. The have a poured concrete slab rather than floorboards, but it is ‘floating’ so we can pass cables and stuff around it – I don’t know what that means either, it just sounds impressive! You can clearly see the columns now to the front, and Paul has christened it ‘Battersea Power Station’, I think you can guess why! It is really starting to take shape now and you get a real feel for the size of the rooms.

See what we mean about Battersea Power Station?

This is a view from the Living Room through to the double front doors with more pillars!

Adam on the toilet (or at least on the soil pipe where the toilet will be!)

We now have columns in place for the covered alfresco area and the garage has appeared (almost overnight!). On a separate note, the Shopping Centre in Secret Harbour is looking fab and will definitely be open for Xmas. We have one third of the ‘Woolworths’ sign. It will make a nice change not to have to drive to the equivalent of Stevenage to go grocery shopping! I believe we are also getting a petrol station and a bottle shop (off license) in the not too distant future (alcoholic drivers rejoice!). The new Senior School is also growing by the week – although I think they’re going to have to get a wiggle on to be finished and open for teaching by February 2007. Every time we drive past there seems to be another ‘wing’ appeared.

Ooh, Ooh, I did some Christmas Shopping this week! Target had another ‘mega toy sale’, so I went a put a few bits on lay by! You pay a deposit and then pay it off every month; but the best bit is the store actually keep it for you until Christmas Eve, so you don’t have to keep it in the house and think of more and more ingenious hiding places for pressies. Brilliant idea – so long as I can actually remember what and where I bought stuff! I can’t tell you what I bought as Sam sometimes reads this, although I took Adam with me shopping and put two Thomas DVD’s in the basket. He was very happy and sang the Thomas theme tune all the way round the store. Until, however, the lady took them from him and wouldn’t give them back! He broke his heart crying and shouted in a very angry voice ‘Naughty lady! Home now – tell Daddy!’ I felt really sorry for him! So much so I bought him a lolly to stop him sobbing.

I also celebrated my first birthday in Oz!! Hoorah! I would like to formally thank everyone on here for my CARD (singular – NOT plural, you notice! ;+) Actually, it was the best one I’ve had in a very long time. Paul had actually gone to my two friend’s houses and knocked (on his own – unbribed) to invite them to a birthday BBQ he was holding in my honour. They came with pressies and food (Amy’s mum even baked a beautiful pavlova for my birthday cake with after eights and strawberries, it was fab!) and we sat in the garden all evening whilst the kids played, eating and drinking and laughing a lot. It was lovely and I was really chuffed that Paul bothered to do that as he knew I would probably be feeling a bit low and missing friends and my Mum. Paul excelled himself and picked out a lovely card (as opposed to what he normally does and grabs the one nearest to the checkout in Tescos!) and gave me money for a shopping trip. I’ve also booked a hairdressers appointment (thanks, Mum!), although after what they did to Darcie, I’ve been a little apprehensive. I might tell you how it went…… depends how it turns out, really.

We went to the Mandurah Boat Show today which was very good. Darcie was off playing at Amy’s so we just had the two moaning, whingers to drag around with us. We bought a waterproof boat cover to hopefully stop the damn thing filling up like a bucket and a small gas fired camping stove for when we go on ‘expeditions’ and want to warm out beans up on the move! We also looked at the next step up for us boat-wise which would probably be something we could sleep on. They’re not too expensive really, so when we’ve worked hard and have a bit of extra cash we can re-look at it. They had some gorgeous boats there for well over the million $ mark. Sam was quite taken with them and wanted to apply for a paper round immediately and start saving. Not that he’s very good at saving; he’s not happy until he’s spent everything in his wallet and that includes the small change.

Thats all for this week, I think. Keep up, won't you ;-)