I’ve got lots to tell you, but when I sit here at my little PC in the corner like a young Barbara Cartland, I can’t think what I want to write. Please let that be a warning that this may be a rambling, waffling, off at a tangent kind of post!

The tradesman have been super busy at the house again. We’ve got more cables running through the walls and ceilings than I can count. Paul reckons there’s at least 3 miles worth and I wouldn’t be surprised. Everywhere you look there’s a cable or a pipe. I’ll upload some more photos on flickr (to the right) as they are interesting (to us) by will take up too much of the blog. We’ve paid another progress payment (gulp). I think we’ve only got two more to go. We’re still on schedule for a January completion I think. There’s not really that much left to do, but, hey – this is Australia. Let’s go to the tavern! OK – a few photos (rather than me babbling on)…

The car adds an element of scale.

Adam's room. Looks go to go, eh?

Adam in the activity room.

Sam came a cropper on his scooter last week. He was ‘scooting’ Pentley (walking's too slow, apparently!), when the furry fleabag cut straight in front of him and knocked him flying. Don’t worry – his fall was broken by the tarmac on the road.

Nasty!

He was upset as it was his school assembly item this week and he had to speak in front of everyone. The irony is, a boy in his class was disguised as Ned Kelly with a bucket over his head. Sam asked if he’d swap, but he declined. He’s spent the last month ‘growing’ into his role. It worked as well as when he removed it, his head was still bucket shaped!

Sam did a fab job and was up first, asking everyone to be quiet and welcoming them to Room 21’s assembly. They sang the famous song ‘We are Australian’ which has the lyrics ‘we are, you are, we are Australian.’ However we altered them to be: ‘We’re not, Pentley is, he is Australian (and stupid).’ Strange how the dog’s got more rights to live in Oz than we have. If the business goes wrong, perhaps we can get him to sponsor us. We’ll get the old headscarf out again that we used at the Pinnacles and try the ‘grandma with facial hair’ approach again :o)

It was ‘Safety House Day’ on Wednesday and the assembly was about the Safety House scheme. I’ve mentioned it before, but basically there are houses in Secret Harbour called – wait for it - safety houses. They all have a sign on them and children know they can knock and seek refuge if they are hurt, scared or worried. A fantastic idea! Sam fell off his bike once and got patched up in a safety house. I’d love to do it, but could you imagine….’for GOD’S sake child, I know you’ve broken your leg, but please don’t scream so loud, Paul’s on the phone to a customer’. Can’t see it working really, can you? They gave out prizes for the best colouring of gift vouchers for the canteen. Paul and I were laughing that Darcie wouldn’t win; the canteen would be bankrupt in fifteen minutes! She has an addiction to pikelets and will be entering the Australian version of the Priory shortly.

I may have some news to tell you about Sam shortly….. watch this space :o)

We took the boat out last week for the first time in ages (the weather’s been absolute pants!). We still heave a sigh of relief when we look into the marina and see the boat still afloat – honestly, it’s rained A LOT! We pootled to the estuary and stopped for a BBQ – the weather was lovely. When we moored back in the marina, we met our new ‘neighbours’. They are old boating hands and went out to sea and about 2km off the shore, they met a whale and calf!!! How exciting! I’d love to do that one day – when we have a little more confidence.

Adam at the park - the boat's behind.

Darcie has been to Amy’s for another sleepover, which she thoroughly enjoyed (not as much as us though!) At the moment her front top tooth is threatening to fall out at any moment. I’m not surprised as it was wobbly before we went on holiday, but I threatened her with corporal punishment should she pull it out and look geeky in the holiday snaps. Well, guess what, it’s school photos in a few weeks and we’ve got NO CHANCE of hanging onto this little beauty. I may replace it with a tic-tac, or have her ‘photoshopped’. You can pay extra for this and they’ll remove spots or blemishes. May need it with Sam as his whole face is a blemish at the moment!

STOP PRESS: It’s out! Miss P will now look geeky in her school photo, although she is trying to master the ‘smile without showing teeth’, currently.

Gappy.

We had a get together on Saturday night with some ex-pats we’ve met through the internet. Keys were placed in the fruit bowl and swaps were made! I didn’t get to exchange Paul for a V8 Holden as I had hoped though. It was part of the ‘new friends for the Delaneys’ drive. I think we may get some coverage on the evening news soon. It went well and hopefully we’ve met a few new families to socialise with.

We’ve had the estate agents round the value our house. We wanted to know if we’ve covered the investment of having air con and the patio fitted really. Plus come next year when Arfur’s finished, we need to know what we are doing with this; i.e. keeping and renting or selling. It was laughable. The EA basically asked up for the plans of the block (didn’t have them, we bought second hand), the plans for the house (haven’t got them, we bought second hand) and which builder we used…….you get the picture! It’s all done on the scientific equation of block + house rebuild costs + any extras. Great! We could have worked that one out. So the upshot is, we haven’t made any money; but we haven’t lost any either. Things change so rapidly in real estate here though, by the time we come to sell in 3 months, it could have tripled in price; fickle Australian real estate.

I nearly cancelled our party on Saturday after the horrendous day we had on Friday. It happened like this: On Thursday night, Sam and his mate noticed that the rear wheel on the Prado looked flat. Paul didn’t get home from surveys until 8pm, so I thought we’d deal with it in the morning. All was going well, the kids were ready for school and I mentioned to Paul about the flat tyre. No worries, we’ll take them in the Ford. Got loaded up; flat battery; Paul had left the parking lights on! Bugger. The kids had to walk to school and ended up being late!

We spent the next hour frantically cleaning the house in preparation for the Estate Agent. Paul phoned all the tyre garages to see if they had a call out service as the car was on our sloping drive and we only get little jacks with them. No-one would come out to do it, so we joined the RAC and got a call out. The Estate Agent then turned up at 10am, so we didn’t have tome to jump start the car. She took AGES and was waffling on about this and that. The RAC man turned up in this time too, so Paul was outside dealing with him and the EA wouldn’t discuss price until Paul came in! The RAC man then said ‘where is the key to unlock the wheel cover on the back door of the car?’ We had no idea and it transpires that we should have got a key for this when we bought the car – ggrrrr! So it turns out that they’ll have to tow the car to the garage just to get the blooming tyre changed! So the RAC man buggered off and the estate agent woman eventually told us how much she would market the house for – ggrrrr!

Shortly after this, the lawnmower man turned up. He was a new one and took ages with his wife doing a lovely job, when ‘ping’ three stones flicked up and put huge chips in two panes of glass in the back windows! Ggrrrr! Paul went out to deal with this, when the door bell went; it was the tow truck for the car. They loaded it on and asked where it was to be towed to. I told them the name of the garage that I’d heard Paul mention and they just buggered off with the car. Paul come in from sorting out the window and went APE! How the bloody hell was he supposed to get to the garage when the Ford had a flat battery (and the jump leads were in the Prado) and PLUS, I’d told them the wrong garage – DOH! The lawnmower man ended up jump starting Paul’s car and – get this – he waived his $35 fee for cutting the grass and told us to ‘put it towards the cost of getting the window repaired’ – like $300!!!! How does that work? Do you not have insurance then???? Ggrrr! In between all this madness, imagine the phone ringing 20 times, Paul’s mobile binging constantly with messages and you will have a small indication of how crap our Friday was!

We did manage to get Adam’s hair cut after this, so he no longer looks like a surfer dude and can store breakfast in his hair until lunch!

Sam had his final footie match on Saturday. It was a ‘Derby’ (pronounced DER-by) between two Secret Harbour teams. The weather was lovely and they had a great match. Afterwards, there was a presentation and all the players received a medal for their commitment and team effort during the season. The season seems to have gone really quickly and Sam’s thoroughly enjoyed it and is definitely hoping to sign up again next year. It does mean that the summer’s on its way now, which is good to know :o)

Sam’s thinking about signing up for surf lifesaving now for the summer which is a more sociable thing for the parents too, so I’m all in favour of that!

We took Pentley for a walk on the beach today. He’s really good on the beach and runs for ages after his ball. We’re OK as long as we don’t throw it in the water. He just refuses point blank to get his paws wet and the anchors go on and he grinds to an abrupt halt. It’s good for a few days afterwards as his poo has a high sand content and it’s very easy to tidy up (forms little sandcastles round the yard!). We went to the deli afterwards for a warming coffee and bumped into a family who moved over on Wednesday, so we chewed the fat with them whilst we were at it.

Paul’s trying a roast chicken on the BBQ today. He bought a rotisserie thingy from Bunnings Warehouse and we’re giving it a bash. Will post more soon (if we haven’t got listeria!) ha ha.

Finally, there was a programme on the TV this morning about animals that help people. They had dolphin therapy and hearing dogs for the deaf. In this vein, we have decided that Pentley is a ‘dumb dog for the intelligent’. Suits him I think.