What have we been up to since the last update? Quite a lot really. Mum asked if we could take Mr Cheese on a train as he loves them so much and I remembered a place we went to on our Reccie where you took a train ride into the bush. I did some research on ‘tinternet’ and found the place and we headed off on a Wednesday. Trouble was, it was a bit wet and rainy and I seemed to remember that the carriages were quite open to the elements……..
They don't look impressed - and this was the beginning!
It was a very funny day, all in all. Sam was very unimpressed, Adam was more taken with the raindrops hitting his nose and Darcie was the only one putting on a brave face and smiling for the camera. Mum has finally admitted that she doesn’t want to visit any more ‘poxy’ train lines and I have to admit, we have dragged her to a few in our time: Nene Valley, the Isle of Wight, the Dawlish Donkey, one in Skegness near to Butlins…. The list is almost endless and the trains are all the same; run down and musty and operated by old gits with no life. Perhaps we’ll stop here and this will be our last ever train visit. Then again……
The builders finally came back from their Christmas break and we have seen some movement on the site (hurrah!). We have bricks and first floor rooms are starting to appear and today the roof trusses were delivered. You know what that means? Yep – they’ll want more money! The house is beginning to take shape though and looks mahooosive! Not looking forward to the thought of hoovering it all, I must admit.
Lookin' good!
View from the first floor - the very small strip of blue on the horizon is the sea.
Oh, Darcie has lost another tooth. It held on for so long, I thought she was super-gluing it back in every night at Mums, but eventually it must have sucumbed to one of Mum’s burnt fish fingers (o: ha ha! Darcie left a note for the tooth fairy at home and then buggared off back to Mums for the night! Her note said something along the lines of ‘I’m not here right now, please leave a cheque’.
It was no match for a hard fish finger!
The Friday night BBQ’s have started down the golf club again and it’s an enjoyable way to end the week. Paul usually finds some blokes to chat to whilst Barbie-ing and Mum and I quaff our way through a bottle of wine. The kids are happy playing and collecting golf balls and we’re all back home in bed by 9.30pm (believe me, we’re the last to leave!).
A few Sunday’s ago, we took Mum and the kids for a picnic at a local Dam. Lovely, you may be thinking…. Only we picked the hottest day of the blooming year. In the car on the way there, the temperature peaked at 44!!! It was so hot, Mum described it like sitting by a camp fire. There was a slight wind, but even this was hot – like opening the oven door when it’s fan assisted (o: There were parrots there that came to feed on your hands. It was a nice afternoon, but after a while, we resorted to a water fight to cool down.
Happy Campers.
In front of the Dam.
The famous three off on another adventure....
Then, this last week’s been a bit of a saga.
On Thursday, Paul had an unscheduled hospital visit, after they telephoned the day before to check he was OK for ‘tomorrow’s appointment’ which he knew nothing about! Turns out he had to go for a CT and MRI scan as the appointment he knew about for next week was with the Consultant to discuss the results! Sam offered to go with him and kept him company in the waiting room. He was fine for the first twenty minutes, after which the battery ran out on his PSP and he moaned! He was there for four hours and it cost him $20 in Subway afterwards to placate Sam. He admitted that had he of known what the MRI involved, he would not have been as keen to go )o:
We were booked on the ferry to go to Rottnest Island for the day on Saturday, but it all went a bit Pete Tong. On Friday, I popped round to Mums to pick them up with the intention of heading into Mandurah to do some errands, only Darcie was complaining that her ear-rings hurt. Basically I thought the butterflies on the back of her ear-rings had fallen off. Her ears looked a bit puffy and sore, so I thought I’d change the ear-rings for her. Only to start fiddling and realize that the butterflies were actually right in her ear lobe! It was really sore, so there was no way I could get them out myself, Darcie and I trotted off to Peel A&E.
The staff were lovely there (although they gave her an injection and didn’t DO anything to her – only look! What’s that all about!). They decided that she’d maybe need a small operation to get them out, so referred her to Princess Margaret’s children’s hospital at 8am the following morning (Saturday!).
So our trip to Rottnest was put on hold and we went to Perth’s children’s hospital. They were SO lovely there considering I felt so guilty- putting her through all that for a lousy pair of ear-rings! In the end she had Ketamine (a horse tranquilser!), that knocked her out completely for 2 hours whilst the Doctors removed the ear-rings that had grown into her ears! Nightmare! The trouble is that Darcie gets herself into such as state that she won’t let anyone go near her. She just screams and won’t even let them look. Just before Xmas she had a dentists appointment for a polish and we had to come away without the dentist even looking in her mouth as she was so distressed! The dentist has arranged for some trauma counseling for Darcie in the new year, just so she’ll be able to have some dental care!!
She slept solidly in the hospital for 2½ hours and then they had to keep her in for a further two for observation. She was in her element there with computer games and DVDs. The nurse even made sure she had an ice cream before she was discharged.
So, to cheer everyone up and diffuse Sam’s disappointment at missing Rottnest, I booked a table at the C Restaurant (a revolving restaurant at the top of the AAPT building – one of Perth’s tallest buildings with a fantastic view) for afternoon tea on Sunday. We’d just got our bums settled and were waiting for our sandwiches when the fire alarm went off. We had to evacuate and walk down all 33 flights of stairs!! 722 steps Paul calculated it out at and none of us can walk today (apart from Adam who was carried). Sam was really frightened and would only go back in again after a talk from a Fireman. God – nothing goes smoothly for the Delaneys.
Should have known really – just before the fire alarm went off, Mum actually said she liked it! She eventually finds something she can’t complain about and then she jinx’s it!
Today we have all been so stiff, it’s just not funny! We’re all in agony and are walking like we have sh1t ourselves! Not funny at all! Mum and I took the kids into Mandurah and bought them an ice cream today. As we were sat on the foreshore, some dolphins swam by. Lovely. The weather was good today and is forecast to get hotter throughout the week, so it should be great for Friday ‘AUSTRALIA DAY’. We’re going to see if we can find the place we went to when we came out on holiday and take a picnic and watch the fireworks over Perth. It was fantastic last time we saw them, when we were on holiday and only hoped we would one day be living here. Fingers crossed they are still every bit as spectacular this year.
I would just like to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDY for this week. Have a great day mate, wish we could be there with you, but we haven’t got any warm clothes! :-p
And could you all keep your fingers crossed for Thursday when Paul has his meeting with the consultant.
Gotta go - it's 11.30pm and Paul and Sam are watching a recording of the Arsenal/Man U match. I need to get the half time oranges ready. If they shout one more time for a goal, I think I'll expire with shock. Take care guys, don't get blown away in the wind and keep your extemities covered in the snow. Less than two weeks until Mr Cheese's birthday...... can't wait xx
