I know.......

Not another update, you're thinking; but these are mostly for Mum's benefit (actually, who am I kidding; she's probably the only one who reads my ramblings!!!)

Darcie and Sam had a fab morning on the beach today for Smurf Lifesaving. Darcie is really enjoying it and Sam is off to a competition next Sunday! The weather wasn't that good to start with and the kids weren't in the water much as there were too many rips, but I thought I would share a few photos:

Darcie's luck ran out today; they got her colour hats in!

They have an activity called 'flag race'. All the kids start laying down; feet together and their heads resting on their arms - facing the opposite way to the flag. The starter shouts 'Go' and they all have to jump up, turn 180 degrees and run like billy-o to be the first to grab a flag down the beach. Darcie was fab at this; really quick and kept winning :o)

Starting position; feet together!

In action!

Diving for the flag.

Sam playing soccer to improve team skills.

Paul managed to get a better photo of the house showing the hole for the pool with more perspective (oohh eerr). We had a bad storm last night and I haven't checked it today; I just hope it hasn't all caved in overnight :o(

You can get an idea from Sam how deep the hole is.

The tiler was also working on Saturday to try and catch up. Here's the kids' bathroom. I know it looks a bit like an East End urinal at the moment, but we've got some lovely glass tiles to go int he strip down the middle, so it'll look different when these are on.

Public lav!

Do you think the pile of tiles is getting any smaller?

Arfur from a different angle (for a change :o)

Exciting.....

Sam did his assembly brilliantly on Wednesday. I didn't realise, but he gives up his Tuesday lunch times to be in the 'sustainable energy' group, looking into alternative forms of power and other 'green' issues. I'm very proud of him. He's also done more homework in the last month than he's done all year! Something got into him and he decided that he wanted to have achieved the most homework tasks in the class, and he's been doing 4 a night, some nights to reach his goal. He's the first in the class to reach 40 homework assignments and got a fab Harry Potter pencil case today for his efforts.

Sam says his piece.

I just had to include this picture to acknowledge the fact that Adam is a true Delaney who can, in fact, sleep anywhere - anytime :o)

Yes, he probably could sleep on a washing line too!

And finally.... on to the real excitement! They dug the hole for the pool today!!! Yeay! Two men and two bobcats were on site at 7am this morning. 10 trucks of sand later and we have a very large hole in the garden. The pool gets lifted in on Monday at 10.30am, so watch this space for more piccies.

The site of the pool last night.

We had to water the place where the pool was going to be dug for 12 hours.

The Bobcat starting the dig at 8.30am this morning.

The view from the al fresco.

The 2 Bobcats with the dump truck behind. 10 truck loads of sand were removed today!

......and after the dig with the temporary fencing in place - hard to see how deep it is here.

Darcie poses by the hole :o)

........and they've plumbed in the spa bath too!

To say I'm excited would be an understatement :o) :o) :o)

Lots of photos this week - too tired to write :o)

Last weekend was really busy. On Saturday we went to Adventure World for the day (Perth’s one and only ‘Theme park’ and I use the term loosely!). We went when we were on our reccie visit and haven’t been back since, but the kids had a fantastic time! They have opened a new water slide park with faster slides for the big kids and Sam and Darcie thoroughly enjoyed these, whilst Mr Cheese spent 3 hours on a kiddie version; he must have walked miles!

Wwweeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Looks happy, doesn't he?

He refused to let me move away – kept shouting at me to ‘sit down, Mummy!’ It was a really good day and the good news is that we have a season ticket, so we can go again…… and again…… and again…… until we’re bored!

Frog driver.

Miss P enjoys the fun.

Sam in racing mode.

The boys stop for a chat (and probably a wee!)

Then on Sunday we took the boat out. The weather was perfect and we went ocean bound for Dawesville. We got there and the ocean was so nice we came back the ocean way rather than the estuary way. We came across some dolphins too, which was the first group we’ve seen in ages!




Perhaps the recent shark sightings have kept them all at bay. There have been some VERY local shark sightings! The large breeding schools of snapper have been luring a few in very close to shore apparently!

Darcie pulls a pose (and a muscle!)

Addy models his life jacket - stop press.... he's on the boat AND awake!

It was so hot on Sunday that we got back into the safety of the marina that we decided to jump in, cool off and see if the life jackets work. Good news – they do!

Abandon Ship!

Sam decides to swim to Rottnest.

It’s lovely to have a busy weekend, but you don’t feel like you’ve had a rest, do you?

Arfur is coming on at a snail’s pace. The tiler keeps doing half a days work and going AWOL. What he’s done looks nice though. We’ve got a design from a landscaper which is quite groovy with lots of palm trees and nice features. We’re getting quotes for pool paving now. Anyone got a fiver they can lend us???

His cuffs now match his collar :o)

Our double shower in the en-suite.

The tiling round the bath.

The laundry

.......and the laundry floor!

Oh and to top off our misery, we’re on a diet. It’s a new fangled one called the M&M diet. No, you don’t get to stuff yourself with loads of choccy M&M’s, it’s to get in shape for Margaret and Mike’s visit :o) :o) I am starting to look like a rice cake! No pain, no gain though. It’ll be worth it when they are met in the arrivals hall by thinner versions of us. Failing that, Adventure World had a room of funny mirrors and there was one there which made you look v thin. If the diet fails, I’ll get a pair of glasses made for them out of that mirror stuff = :o) Job done.

I’m sure there’s lots of other news, but I’m tired and can’t think! Paul and I have been so busy over this last week that we’ve lost the ability to speak. We can completely forget words in the middle of a sentence and just look at each other blankly like we expect the other to know what we are thinking. Normally we are very good at anticipating what the other is thinking / going to say, but this has gone out of the window this week. I blame the heat! It’s been in the high 30’s this week and it’s not coming down for a while yet……. YeeHaww!!

Sorry it’s been so long since the last update.

I uploaded the photos and then ran out of puff to write the words! Any more and I think I’ll employ a ghost writer. If nothing else, on a ‘dry news week’ I could get them to be particularly imaginative and make loads of gossipy stuff up to entertain us all :o)

The boat’s now back in the water after having its bottom coated. We went to collect it and had great fun watching the man from the boat yard transport it across the yard and back into the water on a fork lift truck!!! Paul took this photo on his mobile phone (seeing as we forgot the camera D’OH!)

Boat on a stick.

When it was safely back in the water, we had a practise for a few hours in preparation for our Skippers Ticket and I am very pleased and proud to say that I managed to park it back in the pen – first time!!!! Yeay! Go me! We were feeling particularly confident about our skippers after this and were gutted when they phoned to say they’d have to postpone it as there were problems with the test boat :o( Boo Hiss! So all that worry and stress for nothing. Now it’s rescheduled for next Wednesday! Never mind, eh? This is Australia, you know.

We took the boat out the following weekend and as we were walking off the jetty, Paul noticed something eel like bobbing about by the sea wall. Have a look at this and see what you make of it…..

Can you see the black shape by the wall???

We stood and watched for a while and walked round to where it was located and it turned out to be a Ray. It was eating mussels growing on the sea wall. I managed to get a pretty good picture of it:

Ray......... Sting Ray

On the Sunday, we went to the Red Bull Air Race again. It was just as exciting and good to watch, but we got lumbered sitting behind some very rude people who decided that as soon as the flying started they would stand up so the kids couldn’t see! I asked them to sit down, but they weren’t having any of it and refused :o( so it took the edge off it a little for us. I suppose you get plonkers everywhere, don’t you!

It didn’t help though that the woman had a large red hat the size of the North Circular and every time we went to take a photo of the planes, the camera just wanted to focus on her blooming hat! Gggrrrr! Never mind – still managed to get a few good shots eventually.

Sam and Darcie are still enjoying Smurf lifesaving and Sam has been picked to compete in a few weeks at an under 12’s meet!!! How fantastic is that? He’s really pleased. Darcie is having swimming lessons for the next two weeks at school and is doing really well – on stage four and working hard. I’m really proud of them. Sam’s got another speaking part in the school assembly tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to that. I love Mondays and Wednesdays! Adam’s not so keen for some reason :o)

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!