Good gawd!

I’m knacked! Achieving a lot; slowly but surely, but still knackered!

We now have a painter and decorator organised, a fencer, someone to build us some steps and a retaining wall, the blinds have been ordered…. Still waiting for another quote for a tiler (got one, just want a comparison), landscaper and the Dulux colour consultant lady is coming with her dog on Wednesday to offer advice on wall colours! Bit disappointed though as we were supposed to get cabinets this week (bathroom and kitchen) but there’s been a delay with the laminate. I mean, anyone would think they’d only just got the order – not had it and done nothing with it for the best part of 18 months! Grrr. So the meeting with had with the Super for Monday to discuss tiling in our wet areas (fnar!) has been postponed until next week probably. Which means on a tight 10 week schedule to hand over, we’ve had a whole week of………………… nothing (again!). Never mind. We’ve had a few dramas along the way – like the bloke from the blind company sitting on his phone and announcing to his mate in the office that he’d dropped the price, but there was still ‘shit loads of profit in it :o( One very irate phone call later and he was brought back down to size. Unfortunately, they were lovely blinds for a good cost, so we’ve still gone with them. Would have liked to have told him to poke it, but that would have been cutting off my nose to spite my face. At least I know we’ll REALLY get looked after – don’t want to go upsetting me more than once, mate!

Have I shown you my bath already? This is in the kid's bathroom upstairs.

There’s still a lot to co-ordinate with my mobile going all the time with various tradies mumbling down the phone – and god, do they mumble. I know how Paul feels now; I used to think my phone was purely for decoration! Oh - last week we took delivery of our cinema seating (well the 3 seater.... we've got a 4 seater coming too - god knows where we're going to put it. I think it's come up slightly larger than we'd thought!). It's very nice though - leather and they all recline :o) Fabby!

Comfy!

The boat’s being delivered on Friday as there was a delay with the anti-foul if we had it done through the dealer. We’re now dropping it in the water in our marina and having it lifted after a month once the water line’s established and it’s easier to apply the anti foul accurately (allegedly). It’s coming early on Friday, so Paul’s going down early to see if he can grabs some photos as it should (legally) have a wide load escort (much like me ). I’ll throw Darcie into school (literally probably) and head down with Mr Cheese. Because we are hopefully heading into deeper waters in this boat, we’ve had to buy new life jackets with special collars in case we fall from the boat unconscious (shriek!). We’ve also had to buy an EPIRB which is a GPS beacon that you use in absolute dire straights (it alerts the airports and everything if it’s triggered!). They are very attractive jackets and I shall post a piccie of us all in them later on – very fetching! Not quite as fetching as Sam’s surf lifesaving hat….. but almost.

So on top of all this, I’ve arranged a get together with some of the ex pats tomorrow in Kings Park in Perth. It started off as one or two families and the total tonight for preliminary attendance is 21 families!!! We bought a large blue UVA sun protection tent thingy in Boating, Camping, Fishing, Farting today (guess which one we added?), so everyone should know where we are. We have a ‘king’ of picnics thanks to Paul. The weather’s due to be good, so we’re on for an entertaining afternoon. If it goes as well as the last one, we’ll be all right – just glad we’re not having this one at home. There’s a lovely little park for the kids there with dinosaurs and a pond, so I’ve got the kids some fishing nets to play with. I’m surprised they’re still in one piece as Sam, Darcie and Adam were catching each other’s heads all round the shops this afternoon, much to my annoyance.

This week, I also managed to squeeze in a life saving course run by Royal Life Saving. It was only $7.50 and taught you re-suss and what to do if the worst happens with kids and water :o( It was good fun and we got to practise on different mannequins; adult, child and baby. So you can all rest assured that if you collapse in front of me I will panic in a controlled manner, following my DR ABC method:

D Danger
R Response

A Airway
B Breathing
C Compressions

This is the ‘new improved’ method apparently. They keep changing their methods of recommended re-suss when they learn more about what works and what doesn’t, so it’s probably worth doing a course every couple of years. It’s like everything, if you don’t have to use it and remember it, you forget. But it made me buy a first aid kit for the boat…… just in case. If anyone gets anything impaled in their leg, I can bandage it expertly with a piece of sling fabric, moulded into a donut shape and a piece of gauze bandage. I can also fashion a boat from matchsticks and make a dollar go as far as 10! I got a certificate; the first one I’ve got in years, so I am very proud of myself :o)

It was also the kids’ annual sports carnival on Friday (sports day to the uninitiated). It lasts all day and by 10.30 I felt like I’d been sat in a microwave for ten minutes – it was roasting. The kids really get into it and had their hair sprayed blue and Darcie had blue ribbons in her hair.

Darcie 'after' hence the red face and exhausted look!

Paul came down a little later as we had some stereo equipment delivered (we’ve done a back to back deal with a company who supply this and wanted some Navman kit). The kids did brilliantly!

Darcie was up first and came 4th in the flat race. Sam then came 4th in his race too and had to announce his name whilst stood on the podium. Then in the afternoon they had all the team games: tunnelball, flag race….. loads of them, before the afternoon was finished off with the relay.

Darcie ran in the relay and her team came first. She runs like the wind when she wants to; really, really fast! Adam even had a go at the toddler’s race and got a sticker for his efforts and wanted to carry on running all day afterwards.

Here’s a photo of Sam with his award stickers.

Sam shows off his winner stickers.

They were knackered at the end. Unfortunately, their team (Ocean) came second by ONE point – swizz! But it was a great day and the kids loved it!

Go Darcie!

Miss Parcel and Mr Cheese have a hug during the interval.

We’ve got some new neighbours too. Meet Aggie and Kim:

They keep their puddle very clean. They’ve nearly been run over four times this week and the kids keep trying to mangle them in their bicycle spokes as they ride past. I think they’re only here temporarily – like a DSS B&B - as the rain’s due to stop next week and they will be homeless again. I would feed them, but I don’t want Duck shit on my driveway.

So, we’ve got another busy week looming; Sam’s birthday on Tuesday, lots of house things throughout the week to co-ordinate and then the new boat coming on Friday. Paul’s letting Sam have a sleep over for his birthday and four ‘lucky’ mates have received a ‘golden ticket’ for the main event. I think I’ll either be out, or drunk! (or possibly both :o) Sam’s even made a list of food and drink he would like (bless), and I’m on ‘pass the parcel’ duty – with a twist…. If I start it now, it’ll be the size of a boulder by Saturday. I might put a mouse trap in there, just to spice things up a little! At least next weekend is a public holiday, so we’ll get the Monday off too to recover and play with our new toy. We’ll be too nervous to take it out though in case we damage it! Oh well, it’s insured…..

The kids break up on Friday, so I’m looking forward to not having that disorientated feeling I’ve been having in the morning when the alarm goes off: what day is it? What time is it? Do I need to get up now? Is it a school day? What sh*t’s going to hit the fan today? I’ve got a few nice things planned for the holidays to break things up a little, so we’ll see how things develop. We may have a huge new circle of friends after tomorrow and have a plethora of sociable offers for the school break….. then again, it might be an ice cream in Mandurah. Either way I’ll be happy.

The summer’s coming and it feels good! The winter is fading away and the warmth is creeping back and putting a smile on people’s faces again. We’ve had a couple of ‘feels good to be here’ moments over the last few weeks that you don’t feel in the middle of winter. Hopefully with the boat coming, Paul and I will be able to do a little work from there in the warmer months – have laptop and mobile phone…… will travel.

Oh and before I forget; this is for Sam:

I can’t believe that in a few days time, you will reach the ripe old age of 10. In some ways, it only seems like a heartbeat ago they were placing you into my arms as a newborn, yet in others, we have been through so much as a family in those ten years, it’s hard to remember life without you. You have a fantastic sense of humour and although (god knows!) you can be as stubborn as a mule – yes Paul, I know where he gets it from….. – you stand up for what you believe in and aren’t afraid to try new experiences and meet new people. You try the patience of a saint at times and you can argue a case for anything but I am very proud to have you as my son and would like to thank you for being the cantankerous, argumentative, troublesome boy that you are. Happy birthday, Sam. I love you x

Well, that’s it! We’ve succumbed. We didn’t mean to; it was the lure of the bar and the promise of a regular sausage sizzle. It was the thought of a developing social life on a Friday night and a party on New Year’s Eve. All the above was just too much to refuse. We had to do it. It would be un-Australian not to. We’ve joined…………..





………..Secret Harbour Surf Lifesaving Club. Which means, (in true ‘Home and Away’ styleee), we can pop down the surf club for a beer!

It also means that Sam has to sport one of the surf lifesaving hats! OK – not THE best look, but it’s for a purpose; the coaches need to be able to recognise their heads in the water quickly. Surf lifesaving takes place every Sunday morning – a good excuse to get us out of our pits, enjoying the beach (with the dog) and into the sunshine for the summer. The kids learn life saving skills, swim, run and learn to use the body boards and other life saving equipment. Their ultimate goal is to recruit and train the next generation of beach patrols. We’ve joined as a family and you can do as much, or as little as you want to get involved with. Darcie is going to have a go – we haven’t bought her hat yet though. She’s waiting to see how many of her friends do it first I think (and how much Sam gets laughed at)!

He looks impressed, doesn't he? NOT!

Hopefully it’ll be our way to become more involved in the community. It’s a massive thing over here and in the summer, the beaches are full of ‘Nippers’ as the kids are called, training and enjoying themselves. The kids can choose to compete if they want to and challenge other surf lifesaving clubs. Their age group determines what colour hat they wear. Sam’s a yellow and black - as you can see. I’m looking forward to it; it starts in early October and the weather should have well and truly kicked in by then! After the success of the football for the Winter season, we agreed that Sam could have a summer sport too. It’ll get us up and out of the house and it’s all finished by 10.30, so it doesn’t ruin the whole day.

So, it’s been an expensive weekend! We joined the surf club at $200. My rings were finally ready for collection on Friday. My engagement ring now has a sparkly new diamond in it (and they suggested I had a little work done on my other ring to avoid the same thing happening to that one :o( so that was $460! Blooming excess on insurance! What’s that all about? Ends up costing you just as much as paying for the poxy repair in the first place! Then we move onto the house…….

We are at ‘lock up’ now; in as much as the front doors went on last week. We are still able to sneak in through the patio door, but we need to get a key organised or we won’t have access to bore you rigid with our photos!

We have doors!

Now the fun stuff starts, getting trades organised for quotes (urgh!) and buying stuff to fill it (double urgh and expensive). We’ve done a deal for all the AV equipment for the home theatre and last week, Paul noticed that one store had a fab deal on seating for the theatre……. So we bought it with the view to storing it here. We’ve bought a four seater and a three seater leather recliners. The idea is, we are going to have a raised plinth at the back – this is where the four seater will sit, then the three seater will go in the front – so it looks like a proper cinema! Can’t wait to sit in there and watch Pixar films :o)

View from the kitchen towards the Dining Room

The house is looking pretty cool though. Hopefully we should have tiles and cabinets delivered pretty soon. The white set plaster will be finished today and then they have to render the outside of the house to finish that off. Another family we know are at the same stage and their builder has given them a hand over date of November! Don’t think we’ll be able to match that, although all the trades bugger off for 2 months over the Xmas anyway, so we won’t get anything done then anyhow.

View from the Dining Room towards the lounge - note the 'feature nooks'

ARGH! Just spent an hour on the phone trying to get quotes; I’ve spoken with six ‘companies’ and only got two appointments! One bloke who’s advertising is on holiday for two months! What’s the point of that? Cancel the advert dumbass!! God, it’s going to be a nightmare, I can just tell!

Sam’s got his school excursion this week to a wildlife park near Perth. His class have been learning about native animals, so it’s their opportunity to get up close and bitten by some. Should be interesting. I hope Sam chooses to share his lunch with something venomous!

Other breaking news: we’ve sold our boat! Yeah, I know, we’ve only just got it, but the broker we bought it from made us an offer which we accepted and then we shopped around and bought this:

A SeaRay 275 :o)

For about $25k less than it should be – brand new. So it means that we’ll be without a boat for about 6 weeks as it has to be detailed, anti-fouled and trimmed. It’s only about 3 feet longer than the old one, but that’s a lot in a boat when you’re trying to moor it, believe you me! The downstairs layout is pretty similar, but there’s more room ‘up top’ with a larger seating area and a little sink for entertaining (no – I don’t know how you can ‘entertain’ with a sink either – but it sounded good at the time!).

The deal on our boat was only finalised yesterday, so we picked the kids up from school and then took all our stuff off in readiness for the new owner to collect. We had a LOT of stuff on it; fishing rods, sleeping bags, cutlery and crockery….. It’s been a good stepping stone. I just hope this is a cure for Paul’s ‘foot disease’; it’s a common illness that afflicts boat owners apparently, whereby the foot size of their boat is never quite large enough and their feet itch until they are able to upgrade to a larger vessel.

Sam was slightly disappointed when he realised this one wouldn’t have a helipad!!! (WTF!), but calmed down a little with the promise of more drinks holders. Here’s a photo from the brochure – how hilarious!

Do they really think that people go to all the trouble of preparing a sundae in a 4 metre swell in a kitchen the size of a coal bunker! These pictures are more staged than a show home! Who piles their towels neatly with a flower on them? Have you met my kids? Three ‘character’ towels, each wet through, covered in sand and slung in a heap in the corner is more like it! I though I was posh putting colour co-ordinated hand soap in the toilet! I shall have to invest in some plastic plants now and some sundae dishes!

We've been walking the Furry Handbag (as Adam calls him) alot on the beach. He is slowly venturing into the water after his ball, but he's very cautious. Could it be that the brick I've tied round his neck is too heavy? :o) Only joking RSPCA people. We LOVE our furry handbag.

Until next time; I'm just going to see if there are any coins down the back of the sofa!