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
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.
