Busy week again….

So, we had our second UK visitor this weekend. Paul, curry club member and jolly nice chap came for a flying (literally) visit on route home from Sydily. We got our dates slightly wrong and he was here for 24 hours less than we thought, so we eased off on the itinerary a little. Paul picked him up from the airport on Thursday and I took the kids swimming for an hour, so he had a chance to acclimatise and didn’t need to crack open the noise cancelling headphones (just yet!). We had a curry for dinner in celebration.

Friday we let the kids have a hooky day off of school (unless you’re the Principal, in which case, the kids had a very bad tummy bug (o: ). We took the boat out for a few hours, stopped for a BBQ upstream and then chased a few dolphins home. Paul managed to get some cool photos of the dolphins (although NOT as good as mine :o/ ). Afterwards we went down to Mandurah foreshore for an ice cream and a little sightseeing. The two Paul’s went out for dinner at Little Creatures in Freo and rolled back in at gone 10pm!!! Unheard of! I thought they couldn’t drive home as they’d turned into pumpkins, but they did roll in eventually. They had a good time and I was pleased of the opportunity to indulge in a Lemsip and scream at the kids. Adam had only managed two days in childcare last week and by way of Karma had brought home a cold to treat us all too. His way of punishing us for sending him, I guess.

Saturday was spent watching Sam play footie, then a trip to Freo to pick up some souvenir tat. Then a trip north to Mullaloo for another BBQ and then coffee and ice cream in Hillarys. Very nice. Saturday night we were knackered and full of cold. The kids went to bed and we ended up watching Shrek and eating Tim Tams – burnt themselves out the night before; I knew they shouldn’t have stayed out till gone 10.

When did my daughter gow up so much?

Then Sunday was here and it was back to the airport. :o( Darcie cried until 1pm! ‘Little D’ missed her pal. Paul treated them to a Maccie D’s brekkie and then we took Pentley to the beach and the boys did a little fishing.

Pentley helps himself to Cuttlefish from the 'beach buffet'

Didn’t catch anything – Paul moaned about the waves – dur! It’s a beach!

Sam has a Reginald Perrin moment.

Then yesterday (a public holiday) we took the boat out again and saw more dolphins. The dolphins were going a little mad yesterday.

The dolphins aren't shy and come very close to the boats.

We came to the conclusion that they were having ‘ladies and gentlemen’ as they were really thrashing about and were in groups. When we came home, it was on the TV that a shark had been filmed bothering some fishermen off the coast of Mandurah and they’d obviously filmed the shark on their mobiles and you could visibly see this bleeding great, scary monster circling their boat. Made us look at some of the photos of fins in a different light.

What do you reckon, dolphin or not dolphin?

We’re getting better at it now although it is a little bigger than our old boat….. oh yes, forgot to say, we did get the new boat. It worked out really well. We took delivery of the new one on Wednesday and the new owner collected our old boat Tuesday night! He only lives round the corner and saw the ‘For Sale’ sign we had propped on it.

Our new baby. We're going to have it named 'Jibber Jabber'. That's all the kids do... all the time and we thought it was a good name!

We had a couple of hours coaching on the new boat on Wednesday with a professional. He taught us how to moor and drop the anchor – all important stuff that we’d ‘winged’ previously. We’re having another couple of hours with him again this week as I made a complete pigs ear of getting the boat back into the pen on Monday and if Paul hadn’t of taken over, I think I’d still be there, going round again for another go!

Sam - armed and dangerous!

Got lots to do now this week to get ready for our hols on Saturday. Don’t think you’ve gone deaf – I might not be able to update the blog on dial up! I’ve got a pile of ironing Sherpa Tensing would like to have a crack at climbing and a million and one things to do between now and then. I know, I know, stop writing this drivel and get on with it! I will…… Toodle pip! (Or a place where they dump dogs: Poodle Tip!)