Match of the Day!

We’ve had the first match. Sam’s team played their first match on Saturday and a good time was had by all. Sam plays for the Secret Harbour Storm. They are an Aussie Rules Football team who are affiliated with the Fremantle Dockers (the equivalent of Spurs). There are lots of teams that form a league and they all play each other. Everyone gets a game, an orange at half time and the man of the match gets a voucher for a treat. They encourage good sportsmanship and the player chosen to be captain has to give the team pep-talk and praise the other players for the things they’ve done well in the game. It’s organised like a military operation and the parents that run it put 100% into it. Sam has a training session every Tuesday evening and then a match every Saturday. It’s early days in the family that never sticks to any activities, but things seem to be going well.

Sam in his footie kit.

At least we’ll be more organised next match. Other parents arrived with chairs, eskys and flasks – Paul and Darcie turned up in thongs and a cardy! There was a mobile van that sold teas/coffees/snacks, though, so all was not lost.

After the footy we headed to Fremantle and did a little shopping; nothing exciting, just boring old food. I seem to visit a blooming supermarket at least once a day. As soon as I’ve got home and unpacked it, it’s gone! I think Pentley’s got a penchant for peanut butter sandwiches and gorges himself on snacks all through the night. He probably sits on the sofa of an evening in a smoking jacket, sipping margaritas and nibbling on nuts. Speaking of Pentley, we went for a walk today (not Pentley – he’s not allowed out yet), but the rest of us had a stroll to the deli. When we got back, it was raining, so we shoved the buggy in the garage. Not thinking anything of it, we put Pentley in there to dry off after he’d had his lunch. We opened the door to let him in and were met by this picture.

Comfy, are we?

Could you imagine the look on people’s faces if I was to take him for a stroll down the road like that? ‘What a lovely looking baby ARGH!!!! My – what a large nose he has – does he get that from the Father’s side of the family?’ I might just take him out in the buggy for a laugh. He’s got a very snotty – ‘and what do you think you’re looking at?’ look about him that would go down perfectly! Perhaps I could knit him a little bonnet to make it more authentic.

We did the equivalent of walking into town for a Costa coffee today; we walked to the school oval (there was supposed to be an Autumn Fair on, but it was cancelled due to bad weather!), so we carried on walking and ended up at the deli. The kids rode their scooters and had fun scooting through the puddles. We had a coffee and it started to really chuck it down, so we battened down the hatches and ordered a box of hot chips and waited for the clouds to pass.

Sheltering from the rain at the Deli.

It was nice to get out into the rain. Adam loved playing in the puddles and started chasing all the ‘carrots’ that were hanging around the deli.

They're carrots - ask Adam!

We had a lovely day on Wednesday for Anzac Day. We couldn’t get our bums out of bed early enough to get to the dawn services – caught them on the TV instead. But seeing as everyone had the day off, we thought we’d head into Perth for the Anzac Day Parade. All the veterans march through Perth, along with some current day servicemen, marching bands and pipers.

Some of the women nurses from the war travel in style.

It was very moving to see the old servicemen still wearing their uniforms with such pride; marching with more precision than some of the active naval men. As they marched, the crowd clapped them and cheered as they walked on with their heads held high and a tear in their eye for their former comrades and memories of times gone by.

The Commander and crew of HMAS Perth who visited Sam and Darcie's school the previous day. The Commander leading was the one who gave the kids a speech at the wreath laying ceremony.

Tonight on the TV, the ‘highlight’ was the grand finale of ‘Australia’s Got Talent’. Nine weeks of drivel we have sat through to reach this major televisual event. Shall I let you in on the major talent Australia has to offer? There were four main performers: a duo that could change clothes exceptionally quickly, a 9 year old girl who could sing like Celine Dion, an old man who played tunes on a gum leaf and…… a bloke called Col E Flower, who played tunes on a hollowed out carrot! I kid you not – that was the best. Can you imagine what dross the early rounds produced?? Ha ha

We’ve started a reward chart for the kids to earn holiday spending money. They get a dollar a day if they do their chores and are able to earn ‘extras’ if they want to do a little extra. We’ve told them that however hard they work, if they prove to us that they can behave and keep their rooms tidy, we will double their earnings. So far, Darcie has earnt $7.50 and Sam owes us $10! Adam doesn’t care, he’ll just sponge off the others and as long as he’s got a sweet in his pocket and a train by his side, he’ll be happy.

The house continues to be rendered. They are supposed to be starting some internal plastering this week! The excitement!

I thought you'd all like to hear about Darcie's role in the school Anzac ceremony today. Tomorrow is ANZAC day and a public holiday all across Australia. This is to commemorate the anniversary of the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli in Turkey. It's a major deal here, with every town holding dawn services on Anzac morning. Secret Harbour School hold a special ANZAC assembly every year and invite service men and women from Rockingham Naval Base to come along and address the school, along with a few old servicemen.

It's a really touching ceremony. The old serviceman recited the Ode and the Last Post is played whilst the flag is lowered by a naval officer.

All the children bring in a flower from home and this flower is added to a class wreath which is then placed at the flagpole. Darcie was asked to carry the wreath. It was a real honour and she was very excited and nervous too; she practised and practised last night.

She carried the flowers up, placed them down, took a step backward, bowed her head and then stood for a minute in silence before returning to her seat. She did it brilliantly and we were very proud of her.

Other news:
Sam had his second Aussie Rules Football training session tonight and has his first match on Saturday. He really enjoys it (although it's early days (o: ) and different to the soccer he played in England as everyone here is guaranteed a game and to be part of the team regardless of their ability. He has to get a mouth guard (it's a bit rough - like rugby mixed with a night out in Brixton; plus a mullet for good measure) and has the footy boots and the socks already. I'll post an update with pictures of the match at the weekend. Although I will just mention that he had to have adult SIZE EIGHT boots!!!!!!!!!

Oh - Alan's OK, thanks for asking. He's been a bit busy this week with other work commitments, but he often pops round to let me know he still cares. Yes! I am completely mad. Thank you.

Hooray, hooray, it’s a holi-holi-day!

Yep – a lot can happen in 24 hours in the Delaney house. Paul went back to see the Consultant on Thursday and has been given the all clear for six weeks (argh!), when he has to go back again to make sure his nose isn’t too crusty (?). It was like going to a West End Show visiting the Consultant. As Fremantle is a teaching hospital and the med students only learn through watching the professionals, the consultant sat there with Paul (I skulked behind) and sitting in front, in staged seating, were about 10 medical students, all listening intently and making notes. The upshot is, the Dr is very pleased with the progress. All the tumour was removed and it’s definitely benign, so happy days!! He’s still got to wash his nose out twice daily, but the pain subsided a lot and hopefully the corner has been turned! Hooray!

After the Consultant, we treated the kids to a curry in Fremantle and I have to say, it was delish – probably the best on we’ve had since we arrived in WA (not that great an accolade, really!). For pudding, we took the kids to Cold Rock. It’s an ice cream parlour (god, what an old word – parlour!) where you choose your ice cream flavour and then you can have various things ‘mashed’ into the ice cream. They do it all in front of you on a marble block that they scrape the ice off prior to mashing. Sam had a white chocolate ice cream with mini mars bars mushed in, Darcie had bubblegum ice cream with ‘Nerds’ in and Adam had vanilla with gummi bears. You could choose from mini twix’s, marshmallows, maltesers….. it would take a month of Sunday’s to work through all the possible combinations. I just wished there was one a little closer to us.

The kids have had a few treats this school holiday, but we are aware that they’ve been a little tied to the house with Paul being poorly and the business. They’ve still managed to have a few nice lunches out with us, lots of shopping for treats and goodies (the Deal or No Deal game was a hit), and Paul took them to the pictures to see ‘Are we done yet?’ which only got a 6/10 from the Film 2007 Sam Delaney rating scale. We even managed a few hours on the beach body boarding in the surf (well, Sam and Darcie did to be precise. Adam had fun trying to dig his way back to England and Paul and I huddled together with a take away coffee - what? The temperature was a lowly 22 degrees and it was very windy too!). Our blood is too thin now for cold weather. Could I add cornflour? Do you think that would thicken it and help keep me warm?)

Pentley is getting bigger by the blooming day! He’s turning into Digby, the biggest dog in the world! He is a little confused however, as he doesn’t know if his name is ‘Pentley’ or ‘If you sh*t on the carpet one more time, you can pack your bags!’. Admittedly, it’s not quite as catchy, but believe me, it’s much more fitting at the moment. Any potty training tips you would care to give us….. have I asked before? I’m getting desperate now! Mind you, thanks to Pentley, Paul and I have invented a new game. It’s called ‘guff tennis’ and is played thus:

Players assume their positions (usually Paul lollops on the sofa and I sit slumped in the arm chair).
Pentley is sprawled in his basket at both of our feet.
Pentley guffs.
Paul and I madly ‘bat’ the guff back and forth to each other with cushions until the smell dissipates. The winner is the one who manages one last swing of the cushion so that the other player still gets a whiff.

Guff Tennis inventor, Pentley Bark in his favourite sleeping position.

Oh, the fun we have in our house. Try it at home for yourself. If you don’t have a dog, invite a man round – any man will do; they all suffer from flatulence. Just some are more brazen with it than others! Make sure brussel sprouts are on the menu for dinner to ensure guffs pass quality control (Pentley has NO issues in that department, let me tell you).

So, as we’ve had a bit of a hard time of it lately, our thoughts have turned to holidays. I know we live in a very beautiful part of the world, but two hours either way (North or South, that is – East is the ocean, West is desert!), there is nothing! It does feel a little like we are just scooting up and down the A1 and Paul is feeling a little ‘trapped’. But, because the population isn’t here, it costs a small fortune to ‘leave’ WA. We got a few quotes for various holiday options (Skiiing in Victoria was top of the list, until we realised it would cost the price of a very reasonable family car for a week’s break!). It just works differently here. In the UK, our first point of call would be teletext (‘booked it, packed it, fooked off’ in the words of Peter kay (o: ), but there’s nothing similar here. Travel agents don’t seem to offer package hols the same way you could pop into Thomas Cook and get an all-inclusive deal to Majorca. Flights and accommodation are booked separately, so no discount seems to be on offer. So after lots of enquiries….. we booked it ourselves on ‘tinternet. We’re having two weeks on the Gold Coast (over East, about an hour south of Brisbane). We’re flying Qantas (only $40 more than Virgin Blue. Virgin Blue is like Easyjet, so no meals or frills. We flew with them to Sydney and it’d be OK for a 2 hour flight, but anything over 5 and we said we’d pay the extra for the distraction of the meals service to break the monotony). We’re flying via Sydney and it’s a 7 hour flight (with a few hours in Sydney airport in between).

We’ve booked a very child-friendly hotel . Paul’s idea of hell, but even he’s admitted that all the places the kids have been in their little lives and if you ask them where their favourite was, they’d mention ‘Sunny Spain’ and the kids club. Sam still boasts about his t-shirt that he won in the ‘impersonate a moron’ – sorry musical statues game. So we’ve chosen a hotel with a kids club, kids pools, games centre and very child friendly accommodation. I think you can even hire PS2’s in your room, but I won’t mention that bit to Sam; he’d never go anywhere. All the theme parks are over on the Gold Coast too, so there’s Sea World, Movie World, Dreamworld…… loads to choose from as well as the water parks, although it may be a little cold for that – it is Winter, and the temperature only reaches 21 degrees in that part of Oz at that time of year. Well have to see. The itinerary of our family holidays is usually decided via a marathon game of ‘rock, paper, scissors’. Failing that, whoever whinges loudest and longest usually gets their own way. ‘I WANNA LIE IN…..’ I’ll start now (o:

On the Gold Coast they have the Palazzo Versace hotel. Just for a laugh, I entered our holiday dates to get a price to stay there. For a 3 bed condo (complete with our own plunge pool), wait for it…… $22,000!!! I could bloody BUY a pool for that much and have it installed and filled! Butlins here we come!

Speaking of a lie in, I did actually get one today. Paul took the kids out for brekky at Hungry Jacks and I went back to bed for a few hours! It was heaven and I’ve caught up with a few hours that I was desperately missing. The kids are still very tired and I can’t believe they’re back at school already on Monday. Neither of them is looking forward to it – although ten minutes back with their mates and they’ll be fine. Even shorter term for them too, seeing as they’ll be taken out of school for two weeks. I also got a very lovely bouquet of flowers from Paul yesterday as a thank you for coping with things whilst he’s been poorly. Didn’t she do well?

My Lully flowers.

The twitch is still here, by the way. I've named it Alan (Twitchmarsh). He's part of my life now, I felt he deserved a name; plus he's little and a pain in the arse too, so the name is very appropriate!

And I’ve uploaded some new pictures on Flickr if you fancy a look; just click on the Flickr slide show to the right.

Twitch watch:

The twitch is still here. It seems to be triggered by involuntary actions, like sneezing or yawning or moaning at the kids! It no longer seems to be connected with money, so at least I can do the grocery shopping without the worry of being sectioned for my juddery eyelid action :o)

Pentley is settling in nicely, although still fails to distinguish between our lounge and a public convenience! I’m sure we’ll crack it, but I feel like I spend my whole day cleaning up wee and faeces. So far, he has also ingested three snails, half a pound of gravel and the property section of the weekly newspaper; which means he could travel slowly to a ‘home open’ and lay a gravel drive when he got there ha ha!

Adam affectionately 'cuddles' Pentley in a Giant Haystacks hold.

He goes to work with us and spends the day asleep under the desk. He’s becoming more inventive in finding places to hide from the constant poking, prodding and teasing which is the kid’s total reason for living. I'm just grateful the dog gets it now and not me!

The house is coming on in leaps and bounds – we now have a partially-rendered exterior (that sounds funny – should that be a partially-rendered posterior!).

The pipework is in for the bathrooms and the electrical cables have all been channelled in preparation for the internal plastering. The air con has been first-fixed, as has the alarm and the hot water system.

OK, it may not be exciting for you - but they are future taps! **Gasp**

It certainly has moved on since Mum went home – perhaps it was her holding things up. Maybe the builders were worried that she’d find something to criticise (shock, horror – surely not).

Look at the state of my kitchen - pop round for tea; I'll put the wheelbarrow on!

The kids have asked that I put photos of their rooms on the blog. They tidied them especially for their centre spread in ‘Blogger Homes and Gardens’ – they will probably never look this good again (especially Darcie’s room as she is a slut with old pizza in her room and dirty knickers everywhere!).

Darcie's boudoir. I've hidden the knickers under her duvet.

Sam with his Arsenal inspired room.

Sam is particularly good with his room; he often goes off for the night and I go to tuck him in and he’s completely rearranged the layout. His bed has had every configuration within his room possible and desks and lamps move round as if he has his own personal poltergeist.

Rock star in the making.

No word of a lie - he arranges his pens and pencils into rows like this before he goes to bed at night! And I thought I was anal about WH Smiths.

Currently, he has converted his wardrobe into a ‘library’ and sits, shut in his wardrobe, reading by torch light. Yes, I’m sure a psychiatrist would have a great deal to say about that, but I’d rather not know – about either of them. Adam’s room is usually a pigsty. You have to tip toe through the cast of Thomas the Tank Engine meets Bob the Builder, just to kiss him good night; just heaven help if you manage to accidentally tread on one of his talking toys, which then launches into a dialogue for the next five minutes, waking him up in the process…..

Paul’s making slow progress. To be honest, I think the whole episode has knocked him for six. The operation has been massively more involved than either of us first anticipated. The Doctors have since told him just what was involved and it’s pretty nasty. The nerves all run the side of your nose and they have all been stretched to allow the surgeons access to the tumour. If they are stretched, they take a few months (well, up to a year, I think) to go back to a normal function. If however, the nerve was broken, they grow back at a rate of 1mm per month. So if you can imagine the length between the bottom of your nose and the inside of your eyebrow – that’s a lot of months to fully re-grow.

Paul is starting to get some feeling back around his nose and cheek, although his front three teeth are still numb and he could put a skewer through his nostril and not feel anything (oh, the fun I could have whilst he sleeps :-) He could potter off for a little snooze and wake up kebabed! The tablets he’s on are still sellable on street corners, although the dose has dropped. The downside is they give him really vivid, hallucinogenic dreams – almost to the point where he doesn’t want to sleep as the dreams are so bad. Mind you, all this considered, I’ve told him to save me at least two to try. I want to have a bit of a mind-bending experience too out of this! Knowing my luck, nothing will happen. Drugs never seem to work on me as I always seem to have one eye/ear out for the kids which medically counteracts any relaxant I dare to try. Even G&T is losing its effects (I know – how awful!) I have to drink more just to get the same effect :o)

The weather’s supposed to be a bit pants this week – typical kid’s school holiday weather! I might see how Paul goes and if he’s feeling better, he can escort Miss Parcel et al to the pictures and I can scrub the wee from the lino with LBC on my iPod for an afternoon’s unbridled pleasure!

Sam’s just mentioned that the Perth Motor Show’s on too this weekend, so I might dose Paul up on Sanatogen and Ralgex (no, I don’t know why Ralgex – but it’ll make him smell as old as he looks when he shuffles along) and see if he and Sam can manage a more successful trip than they did last year – I don’t know if they actually made it in through the doors before Sam announced that he felt bilious (Mum’s favourite word) and they had to come home. Never mind - it's only Monday. A great deal can happen between now and the weekend.

Bummy cream, mangoes and a twitch.

No, not my shopping list, but my life over the last 12 hours (o:

Adam’s got this thing about bummy cream…. When Mum was over and we’d have a coffee, every time he saw the froth on the top of a cappuccino, or the cream they add to an iced coffee, Adam would let out a loud ‘Eeerrrr, you’re eating bummy cream!’. It came to be a bit of a catchphrase with him, so now every time we make a coffee, it has to have extra bummy cream. Honestly, the people in the local coffee place must think we’re barking!

Mangoes! Well, the excitement. Sam came in from the garden today, carrying a mango! ‘What’s this Mum?’ he asked. It was a lovely, juicy, ripe mango, fresh from our garden! How exciting’s that? We didn’t even know it was a mango tree – it looks a bit dead to us, but Sam found it, in all its glory lying on the ground by the side of the tree. We took it in washed and peeled it and devoured it in minutes! When we took Pentley out in the garden later on, you could almost hear the mango tree complaining…..’four months I was blooming nurturing that. My one and only fruit. My beloved. The Fruit of my loins, and you piggin lot take it and scoff it with no thought for me in less than 30 seconds!’ It was delish though. Even Adam thoroughly enjoyed it and had juice dribbling down his chin. I’m hoping Sam will come back in tomorrow having discovered a prawn tree or a chocolate bush. We do have an olive tree that we bought when we first arrived. This is growing well, but I’ve no idea what to do with the olives to make then edible? There was a man harvesting olives on the roundabout on the way to the supermarket today. I should have pulled over and asked him what he does with them – I love olives! We also have another tree that we bought that’s a cross between a lemon and an orange. I only wanted these to go in my G&T. I’ll have to find a recipe for a alcoholic smoothie that I can use my mango in (who am I kidding, the tree looks half dead and we’ve just eaten it’s one and only fruit…. Next year’s harvest doesn’t look too promising (o: )

Oh, and I’ve got a twitch. Forget about all this moaning that Paul keeps doing about his ‘major’ operation; I’ve got a twitch and it’s driving me mad! I’ve had it since before Mum arrived and it rears its head from time to time. At first, it only ever happened when I was talking about spending money! Very strange. When we first discussed buying this house, when Paul and I discussed mortgages or finance, my twitch would come out to play. It also started in times of stress, so over the last few weeks, I’ve been twitching more than a professional bird watcher! It’s very annoying and whilst Paul’s may be a definite, treatable medical condition, mine is just as troubling! I’ve even googled it and a twitch may last as long as 12 months before disappearing as quickly as it arrived. I didn’t ask it to come. I almost interrupted Paul’s consultant the other week to say ‘ignore all this crap about a tumour – what do you know about minor twitching?’ A valid question, I think? I’ll let you know how it progresses through a new segment: Twitch watch (that’s twitch – NOT twit!). Stay tuned for regular twitch updates and feel free to contact me with any home made cures – no Mum, I’m not using your poultice before you offer – I’d rather have a twitch than smell of onions.

Well, the Easter Bummy (sorry – Bunny) came for a visit. It was touch and go for a while as the stupid bunny delivered to the front garden and not the back! A little confusion occurred for a moment; coupled with lots of cursing and shoulder shrugging, until we realised that he’d obviously mis-read the delivery instructions! Darcie was most put out for a while and told me if he hadn’t been, she was going to ‘write and complain to the council’ Can you imagine the fun the council would have explaining that one to a six year old…

‘ Dear Miss Delaney,

I write with reference to your recent complaint regarding your lack of delivery by the Easter Bunny. We regret to inform you that due to council cut backs and the wrong kind of leaves on the line, the Bunny was decommissioned from service back in August 2006. We are making plans to replace the bunny with the Mandurah Crab Fest crab – however, progress has not been as forthcoming as we had hoped, due to his inability to distribute eggs with his pincers. A great number of eggs have been culled due to his fumbling.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write to us with your concerns. May I take this opportunity to assure you that the council are making every effort to ensure that normal service is resumed for next year. Should all else fail, we will be putting the contract out to tender; previous rodents need not apply.

Kind regards,

The council’

Luckily, disaster was diverted with a scattering of eggs on the front lawn that the kids collected in the rain – yes, I said rain! I also devised an egg hunt in the house where Sam and Darcie had to solve clues to find their eggs. This went down well and I have already had a repeat order for next year!

Paul is still poorly and continues to sleep all day; if he slept any longer within a 24 hour period, I think it could be medically diagnosed as a coma. He only wakes to:

(a) visit the loo – sometimes he doesn’t even bother waking for this (o:

(b) moan at me or the kids

(c) take more painkillers to put him back to sleep

I get more conversation from the goldfish at the moment; and certainly no help on pooper scoop duty. I tell you, if it’s not Pentley poohing, it’s Adam weeing on the carpet. They’ve started to blame each other now and just eye each other as if to say ‘that one was definitely yours’! The house smells like dog and detol – lovely! Perhaps I should write to Airwick and suggest it as a new fragrance.

Speaking of dog. We broke Pentley. We had him three whole days and had to take him to the vet. It was really quite serious yesterday….. He’d been out in the garden playing with the kids when Sam came in and said Pentley was ‘wobbly on his feet’. I went to see him and soon realised that all was not ‘normal’. His eyes were darting constantly from side to side like windscreen wipers on full speed and he was disorientated – moving his head around like Stevie Wonder. When he tried to walk, he wobbled about more than a drunk on a Saturday night. Not good )o: So, being a public holiday weekend, I had to phone around and see if I could find a vet open on Easter Saturday. Luckily I managed to raise one not too far away and Sam and I bundled Pentley in the car and sped off.

You can imagine my upset when the vet said that he’d have to stay in whilst they did some tests. Basically, he was concerned if Pentley had been bitten by anything’ snake / spider / Adam…. The symptoms he was displaying were in line with damage to the nervous system like a bang to the head or a ‘sting’. I just instantly felt like a parent in front of social services! Had we squeezed him too hard? Should his eyes have popped out like that when Adam hugged him? I felt SO bad )o:

The vet kept him in and gave him antibiotics and a cortisone injection and told me to phone back in two hours to see how he was going. I cried in the car on the way home. Three days we’d had him and he was already broken! Did we still have the receipt? Could I exchange him for a different size or colour? Anyhow, two hours later I called and they said there was some improvement, but they still weren’t sure if he would be allowed home and could I phone back at 4.30pm? So I waited and called back and they wanted to keep him in overnight to ensure that he recovered fully )o: Poor Pentley.

The night was very quiet. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to a pup around the place. We were up early with the kids this morning seeing as it was the great Easter Hunt, so we were all really pleased when the vet confirmed he would be allowed home. He’s on antibiotics and we are supposed to keep him ‘quiet’ (yeah right; puppy + 3 kids = hyperactivity squared!), but he seems fine and it’s lovely to have him back home.

The vet seems convinced that ‘something’ bit him (says a lot about my kids if it was Adam; he’s fine, but the dog needs antibiotics! Ha ha ). It’s a one-off, freaky chance in a lifetime thing that will hopefully never happen again, but even he admitted that his signs were ‘quite concerning’ when we took him in yesterday.

We had three disasters yesterday: the freezer was leaking when we woke up (the door hadn’t been shut properly and the ice cubes had melted and pooled on the floor), we broke Pentley and then I broke the patio door and got he key stuck in it (on the outside – no, I don’t really know how I managed that, either!). The locksmith wanted $140 just to come out and said if it was a ‘so and so’ type he wouldn’t be able to fix it any how! I said it could wait until Tuesday when his call out rate would drop to $70 and if he looked and couldn’t fix it, he wouldn’t charge us. I suggested trying WD40, at which point Paul lectured me on the fact that it wouldn’t work; before wetting the bed and falling back asleep (o: - not really!). But I thought I’d buy a small can and try it today whilst he was asleep; and guess what – it worked!!! Good job really as I spent the locksmith’s money at the vets! Actually, the vet's bill was quite reasonable - $180 (about £80) all in, including a course of strawberry flavoured antibiotics and a night’s b&b. (The vet told Darcie not to take the dog’s medicine or else she would start barking. How gullible is she? She wants to just have a sip to see if she can talk like Pentley!).

So, how exciting was your Easter weekend? Bet it wasn’t as exciting as ours and we’ve still got a day to go. Must go – the vet gave me an instruction manual for Pentley, so I’m off to find out where his replacement batteries go and where the ‘reset’ switch is. See you next time for twitch update!

Pentley Bl**dy Bark!

Well I have reverted back to motherhood and by that, I mean motherhood of a young baby that needs constant reassurance, cuddles and bottom wiping. Welcome to the world of Puppy-dom.

Yep, Pentley Bark has arrived in the Delaney house and boy do we know it. The house smells of Dog (at best!) at worst, something far less savoury (o; He is a very placid little fella though. Spent the whole journey home sitting on Sam’s lap and we didn’t hear a peep out of him. He cried last night a little – which is to be expected – in between shi**ing on the floor. THREE TIMES! I ask you, he’s only little. Where does it all come from? Perhaps he has it delivered in a concrete mixer and dumps it on the floor when we’re not looking. He hasn’t got the hang of things at the moment as he goes out with the kids in the garden and then poos/wees when he gets back indoors. Typical Australian dog ha ha.

Ssshhhh, don't tell them I'm here!

The only peace he gets any salvation from the kids is under the table. They are constantly following him round the house, calling / tugging / tormenting him, so he takes refuge under the table where their bony little fingers find it hard to reach him.

Darcie is still a little nervous of him – you should have seen her when she met Pentley’s granddad prior to coming home. She didn’t like him much, I can tell you. Sam thinks they are best buddies already and Adam has already told me that he loves his puppy. It’s a bit of a popularity contest at the moment and they all get upset if Pentley chooses someone else to play with. Give it a week, they’ll be sick of him and wanting him to choose someone else!

The kids broke up for Easter on Wednesday. Adam and I went to their special Easter Assembly where the Easter Bunny came to draw the raffle. Sam and Darcie didn’t win this time, but enjoyed watching the other children go up to claim their prizes; one child won three, but chose to re-donate. I don’t think Darcie would have been that generous; when it comes to chocolate, it’s each man for himself in this house.

Here’s a picture of Darcie in her Easter bonnet with her card that she made for us. No – I don’t know what the Teletubbie antenna is for either!

Tinky Winky wishes you a Happy Easter.

The house is looking good. They’ve dropped the scaffolding down now the tiling has been finished and they’ve chased out all the walls for the electrics and all the plumbing is now in. They’ve also fitted two skylights for the upstairs bathrooms and the air conditioning ducting is in situ, looking like a giant silver spider stretching his legs throughout the roof space.

Can you see the silvery legs of our house spider?

We’ve also had to sign off on the colour of the render this week. It’s ridiculous really – look at the size of the house against the size of the sample. Like choosing what colour to paint the opera house with a thimble full of paint. Hope it looks OK.

Er..... needle / haystack. What hope do we have?

We’ve signed it off now. It’s a coffee/cream colour although for some reason, both Paul and I were convinced we’d chosen a MUCH darker colour. Oh well…… my memory’s not what is used to be, you know. So hopefully after Easter, we should have the plasterers in to plaster the inside and have the render put on the outside. This will change the way the house looks totally – hope we like the change!

You can really see the dimensions of the house now the scaffolding's moved down.

So, now on to Paul’s news. Well he’s had a really tough week. He was due to go into hospital to have his stitches removed on Tuesday and he was in such a state when he arrived, that he ended up in a wheelchair. So looking like characters from Little Britain, I wheeled Paul up to the clinic, whilst Sam wheeled Adam in his pram and Darcie walked along looking terrified.

It turns out that the agony he was experiencing was due to the packing that they’d placed in the nasal cavity where they had removed the tumour. The Doctors were convinced that he would feel better once the packing was removed, but was anxious as he was told it was so painful he would need a general anaesthetic. They had him take one of his painkillers (which are hard-core, could make a living selling them on street corners, whoop arse painkillers), gave him half an hour for it to take effect and then preceded to start to remove the packing. Apparently Paul physically screamed, the pain was that intense. They managed to remove a length of it, before the pain got too much and he begged them to stop before sobbing for 15 minutes with the pain. Bless. They even considered taking him down to theatre there and then to remove it, but he’d had something to drink, so they refused. Instead he’d have to return next Wednesday to have a small general anaesthetic and have the packing removed. He did manage to have his stitches removed though, so that’s something /o:

Look - no stitches

So, this was all on Tuesday, then on Wednesday I got a phone call from the hospital to say could he go back to the hospital on Thursday for another pre-admission appointment. Sh*t. So we trundled off again on Thursday to sit for another 3 hours whilst he went through the same procedure that he went through last week prior to his first operation.

I'm more tired than you...........ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz

As you can see, I think Paul and Pentley have a shared mutual interest. The duvet is Darcie’s by the way – my taste isn’t that dodgy for the double bed.

Have a great Easter gang. May your hunts be full of eggs, may your bunnies be full of bounce and may your buns be hot and cross.

Love to everyone x