It’s just starting to sink in that we’re going to have to move house again! This will be our 3rd house move in two years and I’m very much ‘over it’ as they say. Every time we move, we seem to chuck out a small flat’s worth of crap and yet again, this time we are organising a skip and have to painstakingly open and sort all the boxes in the garage – many of which have not been looked in since they were packed in Pentley Park! I know some of our Wedding china has been broken, so that will hiss me off when I realise just how many pieces have been lost. I think it’s even more of a miracle on the Antiques Roadshow now when they have a full 27 piece dinner service (completely unchipped) from 1827! Mine’s now in about 1827 pieces – each plate!! We’ve hired a trailer and we’re ready to ‘chuck and cleanse’ all over again. Honestly, I don’t know where all the crap comes from! Three skips we filled before we left WGC and now we still have a garage full of crap. It doesn’t help that every kids present seems to come with 3 cubic metres worth of packaging, which never folds down small enough to fit in a wheely bin and all good intentions of trips to the dump never happen when the sun's shining and there’s something better to do.

I think if we ever stand a chance of getting the cars the garage when we move, we’ll need to get a shed (and as Paul says, being opposite a golf course with some of the worst golfers I’ve ever encountered….. I think the cars will be going IN the garage!). The Aussie house is gauged – not on the square meterage of the house, but the size of the shed! Some of them are ridiculous. In a 30m² garden, they’ll have a 20m² shed! They’re very much into their home brewing here, so perhaps the sheds across the land house a ‘Sid James’ distilling kit like they had in that old film. Who knows? All I know is that if we’re supposed to get a large 4WD car and a Ford Falcon in the garage, we’re gonna need somewhere else to house 5 bicycles, electric scooters, fishing gear, boating kit, collapsible camping chairs (5 off), tent and double inflatable mattress (won in school raffle), 2 x Christmas trees and decorations (the ones that Customs didn’t confiscate!) – that’s without the other accumulative ‘treasures’ that are housed in there currently. They don’t really use their loft space here as it gets VERY hot in the summer and VERY cold in the Winter. So, spare a thought for us as we pack our lives up AGAIN and set about another relocation.

Our en suite; screeded and almost ready for tiling

The kids bathroom upstairs.

The shower has been coated in a waterproof paint, ready for tiling.

We met with our new building supervisor last week. He’s an older one, which is reassuring as the younger ones have been pants. He seems to know what he’s doing and has told us to keep the pool people as scheduled for the end of November, so that’s got to be a good sign….. right? We met with the tiler this week too to discuss what tiles are going where – we couldn’t even remember ordering some of them – so long ago was it that we chose! The texturers have done their job though and at least the collars and cuffs match :o) (apart from a few places where they have ‘issues’ - like the meter box being fitted too far into the wall and they are now unable to connect the gas – oh, nothing important then!? They are having to disconnect all the mains power and demolish the old box to remove it and refit a new one. That’ll be over $1000 coming off the brickies pay on this job!). The builders cocked us up on the tiles for the balcony too. We chose some and assumed that everything was OK; only to be told this week that balcony tiling wasn’t included in the contract, so we’ve had to dash about and select a new tile and beg and plead with the bathroom tiler to lay them for us whilst he’s on site. Luckily he’s a nice bloke and said he would, although I don’t know how much it’s going to cost us yet – more expense!!

The waterproofed shower in the other kid's bathroom upstairs.

Our kitchen.... now with worktops! Can't wait for the glass splashback to go in :o)

Karma is a wonderful thing. After all the hassle we had with the bulkhead with the builder denying it was included and then making us pay more to have it included, they've now discovered it's in the wrong place and it's going to cost them even more money to have it altered. Karma, karma, karma cameleon.........

We got the second lot of home cinema chairs delivered last week too, so the kids playroom now looks like this:

They have just enjoyed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory snuggled up in there together and Darcie's getting an Usherette job in the new year. Might have to buy her a popcorn maker for Xmas; they had a very attractive BRATZ one in the shop today :o)

We had an encounter with some Aussie wildlife last week. I went into the garden with the kids to clear up for a BBQ and moved one of the chair cushions that was on the gravel. Hiding under it was this little bloke!

Gordon Gekko, the blue tongue Bobtail lizard.

I phoned a friend for advice and was comforted in the knowledge that he’s harmless! Will hiss a little if provoked, but they are quite placid creatures called Bobtails that bumble along eating the snails in the garden – top as we’ve got hundreds of the little buggers! We left him to nod off in the garden and in the morning he’d gone. We thought nothing more of it until Pentley started barking the following afternoon. The lizard had walked round to Pentley’s side of the garden looking for an exit. P played the good guard dog and let us know he was there and if I got too close and the lizard hissed at me, Pentley sat on my lap to come between me and it. How brave!

Pentley on Centurion duty. Looks a right miserable bleeder, doesn't he?

He turned up again a few days later in the garage! He’d crawled under the door and was stuck against the main electric door as he was too fat to get underneath it. We tried to direct him back out, but he crawled under a box. Today I got him though! He was there again, against the garage door and I grabbed his tail with my gardening gloves (very Margot Ledbetter!) and deposited him back in the garden (to the front this time). As Darcie laughed in the car on the way home; there is a large gap under the gate leading to the back yard, so by the time we return, Gordon (after Gordon Gekko, the Michael Douglas character in Wall Street….. keep up, won’t you :o) will probably have arranged himself casually on a lounger with a cool drink, copy of the West Australian and be smoking in a cool fashion to have the last laugh on us!

Adam went for his uniform fitting for his ‘posh school’ next year. I just hope his bum increases in girth between now and then as he is still in Age 2 trousers and the smallest size the uniform comes in is a 4! It’ll hang off him. It’ll be like Sam all over again – running with one hand on his shorts to stop them falling down :o)
Still, we managed to order ‘2 of everything’ along with a school bag and that was $250 gone! At least we don’t have to pay for it until we collect it – perhaps I could have done it on a lay-by and pay a little each week (probably wouldn’t look too good for being able to afford the school fees if I had to pay for the uniform like that though :o)

Darcie and I had our sleep over on the boat! We watched 3 DVD’s back to back on our portable DVD player and ate microwave meals and chocolate as we bobbed about on the ocean wave. It was good fun and very cosy; at one point it almost got too warm and we had to open the door – we were ‘steaming’! It was good ‘girls only’ fun and we shall be repeating it! Actually it was amazing the amount of people that were spending the night on their boats! It was a real community feeling and good to know if something went wrong (like we ran out of food :o) there’d be someone to call on to assist.

The boat’s been out of the water today having its bottom scraped and painted to avoid barnacle build up. It’s called anti fouling and needs to be done once a year. This was the first time it was done as it’s delivered without it; but seeing as the boat is constantly in the water, it needs to be done to protect the hull. We’re going to collect it and move it round to the pen on Monday and have a sneaky practice for our Skippers ticket assessment on Wednesday (ARGH – panic!!!).

I haven’t been able to concentrate on the workbook much this week though as I’ve had toothache :o( Went to the dentist today and I’m on anti-biotics for an infection and have a referral for a Endodontist. Who I hear you ask? Me too – until I Googled them…….. they are ROOT CANAL specialists!!!! I’ve got an appointment with him in November and have to go all the way into Perth! How stoopid is that! The dentist today was lovely – full of ‘Mumsy’ women. I do have a cold, but it didn’t appear to smell like a dentist and I didn’t hear one drill the entire time I was there! Excellent! Because we have medical insurance, when I paid the bill, they swiped my insurance card and the insurance company immediately detailed how much they would contribute to the bill, leaving me to pay the balance. The bill was $75 for an X-ray and a consultation and I only had to pay $35 – result. It’s been worth the $180 a month for the last year then, hasn’t it?

The kids are all fine. Sam’s got ‘taster’ golf lessons as part of school this term and Darcie has swimming for two weeks in November. Mr Cheese has a girlfriend at playgroup now, so all is happy with the world. She’s really bossy though!!

I’ve had a cold this week; so the blogs taken me all week to write in bits and pieces. Sorry for the delay. Hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly. Take care everyone!

OMG!!!

I nearly poohed my pants when this happened! This is PENTLEY!!!





Yes, our Pentley! The Pentley that's scared of water. The Pentley that doesn't like getting his paws that wet. I was screeching on the beach like a mad woman - Paul nearly had to slap me!

He really is swimming in search of his tennis ball. His tail is acting like a rudder!

Go Pentley for 2012!!!!

24 hours and the kids will be going back to school – phew!

I do love them, but school holidays are a balancing act of nightmare proportions! Trying to keep them happy, quiet and preventing them from maiming each other is a mammoth task! Paul feels as he is left to get on with things business wise, the house goes to rack and ruin and that strange little man was back knocking at the door asking to climb my mountainous pile of washing and ironing.

The latter isn’t helped by Pentley who helps himself to stuff off the washing line like a ravenous creature at a self service buffet! Last week he ate a bra, a pair of Paul’s trousers, put a hole in a bed sheet and nibbled the straps off of one of my tops! Blooming animal. Perhaps he isn’t getting enough fibre! He also demolished a plastic bucket and pierced a hole in his new ‘gold’ Ali G water bowl. I’m sure he’s got a socket set and a work bench hidden in his kennel as he makes such light work of the destruction! Perhaps we should take him round Arthur – he could nibble all the cement off the floors for the tilers so they’ve got a nice smooth surface to work with :o) If he carries on, I shall plant him under to pool, so he can ‘swim with the fishes’. It’s not helped by the fact that he’s grown to the proportions of a small horse. Adam could easily ride him now and his feet would barely touch the floor. I hope he stops growing soon, or he’ll be wearing the roof as a hat (that’s Pentley – not Adam :o) Should’ve got a gerbil.

Last week, the kids and I went into Kings Park for a few hours whilst Paul had a meeting up in Perth.

Darcie looking very mature (with a blue fishing net accessory).

Ta Dah!

The weather was lovely. We got there really early and the park was empty. By the time we left (after lunch) it was heaving with families.

Sam's on the left, in case the teeth confuse you :o)

The kids had a good play and went fishing with their little nets.

Mr Cheese attempts to snare Moby Dick.

Darcie tries not to get hoovered up.

My birthday was a quiet affair…… well Paul was on the phone :o) ha ha ha! I’d booked the kids in for VACswim last week, so they had lessons at 1.50pm each day, which kid of scuppered any plans for a day out (apart from Friday, that is….). So we had our swimming lesson and then we bundled in the car with Paul and went with him on 2 surveys before going out for dinner. It was very nice and we returned home full and tired – my idea of a good time. Half way to 70 now – that’s more than a little scary. Has the best already been? Have I lost my looks? Will I ever get to meet Ant and Dec? Mum single handedly kept the Post Office (and Australian Customs) in business with her parcels – thank you. I LOVE my M&S bag for life – cow! Just coz you can pop in whenever you want – I can shop via the internet and you pay the postage :-p

The rest of the week went by in a bit of a blur. I went swimming with the kids on Thursday, so that knackered me for the rest of the week. Blooming heck, it was like swimming with a baby monkey clung round your neck, which every time it was removed, screeched at 10 decibels to be replaced! Then after their lessons, Sam and Darcie came to provide support to the monkey and much needed ballast to drag me under even further. The pool has one of the fast moving whirlpool thingies that you get swept around, which is hard enough to negotiate on you own if you lose your footing; let alone when you are being dragged under by a family of baby monkeys hanging from your shoulders. Never again! And I got water in my ear and was deemed deaf for the following 24 hours, so I couldn’t hear what nasty things the kids were saying about me. I don’t know; 35 years old for 48 hours and I needed one of those ear trumpets – what next? I already know my limitations with the star jumps…… it really is all down hill from here on in. I’d better join the loyalty club at the chemist like Paul has. He almost has enough points for a pair of heated slippers now….. every little helps!

Friday the kids played hooky from swimming (we couldn’t manage a whole 5 days :o) and we went to the Mandurah boat show. Paul had some contacts over from a company we deal with, and they gave Paul and I trade passes to the show, so we wandered around enjoying the weather, oohing and ahhing at the various boats and watching Sam cast an approving eye over the models in the fashion show! I think a Leslie Phillips, ‘hel-low’ even passed his lips at one point. I swear I can almost smell the testosterone in his room now (although that may well be his feet ;-o )

Mum, you will be pleased to know that whilst at the show, Paul and I booked to do our Skippers Ticket. We’ve booked for Halloween and the guy said if I go in costume, I’ll get extra points. Don’t know if I’ll be able to steer the boat dressed as a giant pumpkin, but hey – points is points!

Saturday, Paul was a man on a mission. We had instructions to be ‘up and out early’ as we were going on an excursion! The excursion turned out to be a mammoth adventure on the boat. We rose, packed a picnic, dressed and departed and were at the marina by 9am!! Unheard of! So we logged on with Mandurah Sea Rescue (we know what to do now and how to do it! We have a call sign, and have to log on with them during the day – so they can keep a protective ‘eye’ on us – and then log back off once we’re safely back home), and we were off – headed for the ocean! We are fortunate living round Mandurah in that we have the best of both worlds with the ocean, the rivers and the estuary. They are all linked (Nah! Really?), so we headed for the ocean, trundled down the coast to Dawesville – a man made channel that links the ocean with the estuary – then back into the estuary, before returning up the river to Mandurah. It was FANTASTIC! Apart from one hairy moment when Paul was perhaps travelling too fast and the water just disappeared from under us following the crest of a wave; resulting in a 3 foot ‘drop’ through thin air back to meet the water. Great fun. Quite a scary view out the back of the boat though – NO LAND! At some points the water was about 20 metres deep too.

Christopher Columbus, eat your heart out!

Sam adds an element of scale :o)

We were SO pleased with ourselves. We went upstream and moored for a while and had some lunch, before heading back onto the estuary so Sam could do-nut. A fab day was had by all.

What do you mean, 'cut the rope?'

There were two in the boat and the little one said........

Adam enjoys boating with such style and panash, don't you agree?

Next weekend, Darcie and I have a date. We are going to spend the night on the boat together…. alone… bobbing about. We’ve got all sorts of treats organised. Should be good.

Arthur! Well? I hear you ask. Well, don’t! They’ve done stuff all (again!), but we have a new supervisor and we’re meeting with him on Tuesday for a tiling meeting. We did find a key in the meter box (oh, the security!), so we went in for a nose about. Not that there was anything to see that we hadn’t seen before! Hopefully, this week will see things moving along again…… please! They’ll have to get a serious wiggle on now to meet the deadline for the pool company. Although, after Thursday and the episode with the ear trumpet, I might cancel it and have crazy paving instead.

Oh, and a confession, Mum. The Police are coming to Perth in February (the group, with Sting…..not the boys in blue from Stanborough HQ) and we wanted to get tickets, but they all sold out quickly. We got really excited last week when they mentioned they were releasing another date. We logged on to the internet and purchased our tickets…….. only for the victory to sink in and leave the fact that we’ve booked them for Mr Cheese’s Birthday :o( So next year, as a one off spectacular, Adam will be celebrating his birthday a day later than normal on the 3rd! He’ll probably get an extra ‘guilt’ present too. In the words of the great modern day philosopher, Homer Simpson – D’OH!

My word, what a busy week!

The get together with all the ex-pats in Kings Park went well. We had a large turn out and there were so many families who had only been in WA a matter of days, it was invaluable for them to meet up with all the old timers and find out the ‘no nos’ and the ‘must dos’. Everyone was lovely and grateful that I’d bothered to organise it (not a lot to organise really; just post on the net the day and the place and everyone else makes it a success. I just made sure everyone had my mobile number in case they got lost or couldn’t find us). I might do another one in Mandurah in a month or so. It’s the Red Bull Air Race in November, but I don’t know if I want to share that; it was so fab last year.

Not a bad turn out for a Sunday afternoon.

Sam made it. He got to double figures without either Paul or I maiming him or filing for divorce, which in itself, is a great achievement; well done Sam!

Walking on water in King's Park.

He had a good day. His friends spoiled him at school; singing Happy Birthday half a dozen times and he liked his presents, so all was good with the world on Tuesday. He got lots of money, gadgets as usual and Nanny B posted him boxes full of goodies from England – like skips, munchies and jaffa cakes (and the jewel in the crown – a chocolate orange!).

Happy Birthday, Sam!

When Mum arrived on her visit, the Customs officer at the airport frowned at her for stowing a chocolate orange in her case; ‘you can buy those here, you know!’. Yes mate, but I’m not paying the equivalent of a FIVER for one – OK! Mum also sent some pocket money for Darcie and Adam, which their eyes lit up when they saw. Darcie was restrained as she was at school for the day, but Adam kept bringing me my shoes like a little puppy, demanding to go to the ‘shopping centre’ so he could spend his ill-gotten gain :o) He drove me mad! Mum found it hilarious; I wasn’t so amused! In a moment of madness, Paul said that Sam could have a sleepover on Saturday night. He’d invited four friends and the countdown to chaos was on…….

Not too many candles!

During the course of the week, we were finally locked out of Arthur as the tiles were delivered and the kitchen arrived on site on Thursday; along with the bathroom cabinets :o)

Lots of tiles.

My spa bath has also arrived, so all is good! We had a major shock with the kitchen though as we chose the colours for it all nearly two years ago and completely forgot what we had picked. Both Paul and I were convinced it was a high gloss, white kitchen, so you can imagine our surprise when it turned out to be a coffee colour! Very nice though and I’m glad really that it’s not all white – I think it’d be too overpowering and too hard to keep clean! Just as shame as we’d had the Dulux lady round earlier (snobby cow that she was) and we’d chosen all our colours to compliment our sparkling white kitchen!

Our 'not white' kitchen :o)

Also, we’ve made a major boo boo in that the recess for our fridge isn’t wide enough! We kind of forgot that all fridges are different sizes and ours turns out to be 45cm too large! Bugger! Never mind….. we’ll have to claw it back from another budget – like food, or something equally as unimportant! We’ve all got enough blubber to last us a few weeks fasting to save up for a fridge. Well, apart from Mr Cheese who’s all skin and bone. Mind you, they feed him well at nursery, so at least he’ll have two well-fed days out of a week.

En suite cabinets - the spa bath's round the corner..... waiting.

As you can see, we have a kitchen (worktops to come later), cabinets in the bathroom for the ‘his and hers’ sinks and a cupboard in the laundry to house all the washing powder and crap. Hopefully the tiling should start this week and today they’ve undercoated the render for the downstairs. They couldn’t really do this earlier as the weather’s been so wet.

Laundry - exciting, innit?

The kitchen fitter reckoned they only had about 5 weeks work left on site. That’s about 10 weeks in Perceptions (our builder’s) weeks in that case, which would be about right for our November hand over.

The White House...... but not for long.

Other news….. the new boat arrived on Friday! Paul rushed down to Mandurah at 8.30am after specifically asking the delivery guys to phone him when they were on their way so he could take photos; only to arrive as it was literally being dropped into the water (not literally dropped – that’s a ‘boating’ term :o)

On the trailer.....

Coming off the trailer......

It was sickening to see how expertly the guys handled it – anyone would think they did it for a living. Mind you, this was still only a baby one for them as they sell boats in the $$millions$$. The Mandurah boat show is on in a couple of weeks and they’ve already started bringing the boats in; some of them are as much as a small town!

I think the smile says it all :o)

We spent a few hours with Mark from Challenge Marine and he took us all over the boat and made sure we knew the essentials like how to flush the toilet , connect the shore power up and fill up with petrol (*gulp*). It was good fun and we had a bit of a sea trial to get to learn how the trim tabs work etc.

Come back!!!

After Mark left, Paul, I and Mr Cheese went back out on it for a few hours, to get used to it and pootle about. Saturday we couldn’t take it out as it was……… dur.. dur….. dur…..’the sleepover from hell’

The kids were due to arrive at 5pm, but one of them phoned and asked if he could come at 3.30pm as he was too excited (WTF!!!), and it kind of went down hill from there. I can’t believe how the kids have everything and they are so bored and unimpressed with everything! They were rude; no pleases or thank yous for anything! They didn’t acknowledge you when you spoke to them; at best you got a grunt! And they just completely ignored us whenever we asked them to calm down or be quiet. They just had no respect at all for us or our house, or even Sam. They showed off and sulked and one of them even pulled me to one side about 9.30pm to say ‘Thank you for inviting me, I’m very excited to be here…….it’s just that it’s a little boring. There’s not much to do, is there?’ This is after Paul did the boys a BBQ, hired them Spiderman 3 on DVD, I’d done them a pass the parcel (jokey one with glo sticks and false moustaches) and they had a playstation and more games to choose from than I can count on two hands. Oh, no – this was not good enough, obviously! They even sulked because there were 5 of them and only 4 controllers for one of the playstation games! Good grief! Even Sam was getting hissed off with them at about 10pm. He couldn’t believe how hard it was to try and please them all and was very close at one point to telling them all to bugger off home! Two of them had a row and one went off in tears in Sam’s room and it took us an hour to get him out. Perhaps we take for granted how mature Sam is. But then again, we can see where he gets all his particularly annoying traits from too!

Before you say it, Miss Parcel's booked in for an upper lip wax on Wednesday.

They were like lunatics! So hyper, they just wouldn’t calm down at all. Paul hid the fizzy drink in the garage at one point as it just became too much. We went to bed at midnight, hoping that they would all settle down, but NO. Paul kept going out to reason with them, getting more and more annoyed. We were gobsmacked. The way Paul was having to talk to them to have any affect was so strong; we would have been mortified if any of our friend’s parents had spoken to us like that when we were kids! We came to the conclusion that they were too young really to cope with a sleepover. Only one had ever been to a sleep over before and I think that was Sam’s mate who’d been to ours a few weeks before. They just didn’t know what to do or how to act. Eventually after Paul really shouting at them at 2.30am, they gave in and went to sleep.

In the morning, they were just as maddening. One of them even went rooting through the garage and found the fizzy drink that Paul had hidden and started dishing them out to the others – no asking – nothing!! They were all being collected between 10 -11am, so I started feeding them smarties and coke in vast quantities. I told all the parents what a nightmare it was. I wasn’t strong enough about their behaviour though. I know Sam’s no angel, but I would be disgusted if I ever found out that Sam acts like that at someone’s house. Paul gave them a half hour lecture on respect and they still didn’t have a clue. We just found the whole experience very sad. The kids have everything, but it’s never enough. Perhaps it’s the parents fault – us included. We all want our kids to have everything they want and to be happy, probably as compensation for the lack of time we give them. It’s a sad reflection on modern times, I think. WOW, that’s heavy for my blog.

Anyhow, we got rid of them all and went out on the boat again. The wind in our hair was a good stress reliever! We bought a portable DVD player so the kids could watch it and let us have some peace and quiet whilst we moored and it worked really well. The law of sod states that whenever we need to concentrate on something, the kids will kick off and world war three will break out and the peace will be shattered. This new tactic worked well and we shall be exploiting it here on in; long may it continue!

Jump!!!

Then Monday was a public holiday for the Queens birthday, so we were out on the boat again! We cruised around the estuary, getting used to the controls and moored up the river and stopped for a picnic. Lovely. The weather was nice too.

Then today, I had tickets to take the kids to Thomas the Tank Engine live on stage. We’d taken Sam to one in Wembley and it was brill, so we were expecting big things (although this is WA and Sam and I were joking in the car on the way that it may just be a woman on stage reading a book, or cardboard boxes painted as the train characters!).

Can you see Thomas, or just the woman in front's head?

It wasn’t that bad, but the seating was like a school play and the kids couldn’t see properly and stood on their chairs, which in turn meant that the kids behind them couldn’t see…… Adam was chuffed with it and had a good time; although a little disappointed that he didn’t get to meet Dorgon (Gordon) or James.

Miss P enjoys the show.

Darcie quite liked watching all the action on stage, but Paul and Sam sat behind looking like Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show.

Statler and Waldorf?

Paul and Sam?

Every time the characters on the stage were asking for audience participation, shouting out ‘clap, clap, clap’, Sam was shouting back ‘crap, crap, crap’. How rude! I try and organize all this fun stuff for them all; I really don’t know why I bother. No one appreciates me. I may just go down the bottom of the garden and eat some worms! Until next time; can you post me some alka seltzer? It may help with worm heartburn. Thanks :o)