End of Holidays

So we're at the end of the holidays now and we've fitted in a fair bit.  I have been unusually organised this year - all shoes and bags were bought, not today, but weeks ago!  I have this dreadful feeling that somebody will remember something they were meant to have had/done at 8am tomorrow though...

The weather turned out to be better than expected so we've had a couple of beach days, one just walking, talking and paddling and one with swimming, body boarding and rock pool hunting.  Great fun and we left just as the rain came.

 Can you see all the starfish?

High 5's starfish style!

Squirty things - if anyone knows what they are actually called, I'd love to know!

Oct Hols and 10 things...

Wow these holidays have flown by.  We have one day left then the weekend and back to school.  No INSET/Pupil Free days this term, just straight back to business - pheew!  I do love my Mondays to myself.

Since we last spoke there has been the usual beach action, a visit to Newcastle Museum, a good spring-clean, we survived the first week without Husband, hanging out with friends and a trip to watch Mary Poppins in Sydney.  If you live locally, own a small girl, love musicals and haven't been you really should try to get hold of some tickets.  It was fabulous.  It was Miss M's rather belated birthday present but well worth the wait.  We watched the film again the next day and she decided that the play was definitely her favourite.

I received an email earlier in the week from Cheryl at NUMBER FIVE to invite me to share in a wee link up to share with you 10 Things You Didn't Want To Know About Me...  Well, in the interests of general nosiness, here goes.

1.  I'm a fast food Nazi.  My children have been successfully brainwashed to dislike the Golden Arches and their unpleasant friends.  I can whip up a healthy pasta dish in 15 mins so why bother wasting money on food that doesn't fill them?

2.  I cried until my 20 week scan when I found out we were having no5!  People started to avoid me when they saw me coming!  I was all set to start applying for my Masters and was devastated.  His was the hardest labour, I had terrible mastitis, until I begged my GP for the drugs I had found online that she had to then order specially, but I am SO glad to have him!

3.  I get extremely cranky if I don't get enough sleep.  Unfortunately Smallest still thinks that it is his responsibility to climb in and "keep [me] comfy" at 2.30am.

4.  I am a Boys Mummy.  Obviously I have a daughter and I am a girl, but I find boys a whole lot easier to understand and deal with.

5.  I am hopelessly untidy and love having 5 slaves to tidy up for me!  Bribery and corruption works every time.

6.  Since having children my brain has turned to mince.

7.  I regularly fall asleep on the sofa and miss the last crucial 5-10mins of tv programs.  Thankfully we now have a T-Box which has a rewind function.

8.  Since I got my lovely DSLR camera nearly a year ago, I have taken to date 7422 photos.

9.  I really don't understand Twitter.

10.  I am very easily distracted and have far too many WIPs, books and projects currently on the go.

There.  Now I am to ask 5 of you to join me, so over to you

Jules at Little Woolie
Emma at Emma Varnam's Blog
Janette at The Green Dragonfly
Louise at Tea at Weasel's
Kylie at Blue Teacups

Bondi

Today was the first day of the holidays and the first day of Husband going away for a week to the Big Smoke.  He is off to Sydney to take part in a series of lectures at New College, and rather than zip back up and down everyday they are putting him up for the week.  We decided that, since he wasn't required until dinnertime, that we would take him down and spend the day together exploring a bit more of Sydney.  New College is part of the University of New South Wales and is very close to Bondi so we thought we would head there for lunch and go from there.  My parents had been to Bondi a number of years ago, before we came here, and reported back that they had been distinctly under-whelmed by the most famous beach in Australia, so I wasn't expecting too much.  My first thought was that it was a bit like Portrush where my Mother grew up in N.Ireland!  It is much more commercial than our beaches in Newcastle and to be honest I'll take Merewether any day, but we did like it and had fun.

We had lunch in a great pizzeria "Papa Giovannis".  The owner was delighted by all the children and wanted to know were they all ours?   Were we Catholic?  If not why did we have so many?   Why didn't we stop after the girl?  Were we having more?  Were we mad? and so on!  John chatted to his son for ages about Italian football and the kids were given samples of all the different gelato that they make!  If you're ever in Bondi, tell them the crazy Irish/Scottish football-mad family with all the kids sent you!  The pizzas were great and the kids meals were fantastic.

We took our coffees and gelati to the beach and the usual running/jumping/racing competitions ensued.

It didn't take long before Smallest got soaked!  Thankfully there were spare hoodies, warm sunshine and kind Big Brothers.

I do love exploring Sydney.  While I like living in a much smaller city I get a real buzz whenever I see all the skyscrapers, I love the busy streets and all the quirky shops and the unique characters in the different suburbs.  If we had had longer I would have loved to have a walk  or visit other less well-known parts like Bronte and Coogee - another time.

Miss Meg and I will be back in Sydney on Saturday for Mary Poppins so maybe we'll try and fit in a bit more exploring without all the boys.

Happy Birthday Your Majesty!

It's the end of the Long Weekend and I'm watching Heston Blumenthal putting four poor amateur chefs through the wringer on Masterchef while I type. 

It's been a wet, windy and relatively cold weekend, but we're tough Celts and it doesn't stop us!  We've done a wee bit of indoor stuff and the Wii has had a bit of a workout, but Dog and Mummy need to get out for fresh air!  We dodged the showers yesterday and had a good look around the HMAS Newcastle.

 Smallest Boy has decided he would like to join the Navy so that he can climb right to the top of the ship. 

At the end, No2 Boy was delighted to be given some pop out models to make when we got home.  We reckon he'll be an engineer or architect as he loves making/building stuff!

This morning No1 Boy had an extra piano lesson at his teachers house as he has an exam on Saturday.  It gave me half an hour to sit in the car with my crochet, listening to my cd's in peace.  How lovely!  After lunch we rugged up and took ourselves to the beach for, what turned out to be, a very windy walk! 

There was the usual jumping, digging, burying, and racing,  along with some chatting and coffee and ice creams. 

How cute are these two?

And these two?

When we got home we warmed up with hot chocolate and marshmallows - soo good! 


I had to bribe Miss M to do a bit of modelling for me, she was not in the mood and it took some persuasion to get these pics. 

I'm always surprised by how green her eyes are when the rest of us have blue/grey. 

The pattern for this beanie is in The Happy Hooker and I made it a bit smaller by using a 5mm hook.  I have been asked a couple of times to make some beanies as customers at Make Space have been requesting them.  Thankfully they are pretty quick to make - I do love my instant gratification.


And I'd better not forget my "Guardian Alien" built for me by Smallest Boy...

Back to real life in the morning!

Autumn. Or is it Winter...

Autumn in NSW is quite similar to summer in Scotland except that the evenings and nights do get very cold.  The days can be sunny and warm but as soon as that sun goes away the temperatures drop very quickly.  It's actually warmer in the sea than out at the moment!  It's a great time to get out and about without getting too hot, especially when we need to keep that vitamin D topped up.  Also it's good to get out because the houses are freezing!

My In-Laws are here just now and I keep hearing myself ask them if they're cold.  I'm never sure if we've all acclimatised or if it is properly cold as I can honestly say that I don't remember being so cold since our first wee flat in Aberdeen after we got married 18 years ago.  Ice on the inside of the windows was something I didn't enjoy! 

Anyway, due to the fact that 9 people don't fit into an 8-seater car, we didn't get to head up to Port Stephen's as I'd planned for Mother's Day and so did the 'wee dander' to the Blackbutt Reserve instead, followed by a roast dinner cooked by me .  We said hello to the koalas, wallabies, kangaroos and peacocks and enjoyed the beautiful afternoon. 

I just love the colour of the gum tree trunks against the sky. 

There is a very steep hill that we need to walk up to get home but since Granny and Granda aren't as athletic as the children I offered to drive them home.  Husband walked the kids home and No3 Boy managed to RUN up the hill in 44 secs.   He had already run a X-Country on Friday, cut the grass before going out, and won a 'hanging-on-a-bar' contest with the others at the play area, but always seems to manage to keep going.  Apparently he hung on the bar for 2 mins and 27 seconds.   They were delighted to prove Mythbusters wrong!

Monday was a beautiful morning so once everyone was deposited in the appropriate places I harnessed up Dog and headed to my favourite place to walk, with a great little coffee stop in the middle.  I sat and read 2 chapters of my book in the sunshine - bliss!  As we got up to leave I saw the clouds approaching so walked briskly back to the car!  The rain started just as I turned on the engine!

This morning I dropped the In-Laws in town for a wee wander around and took Dog to another favourite spot (no coffee involved this time).  I wish I'd taken my jacket as it was so windy we nearly got blown off the break water at one point!  It certainly blew away those cobwebs and got the blood pumping.  

Thought I would share something I baked for 'afternoon tea' yesterday.  When we headed to Erina last week for The Boy's birthday presents, we had coffee in a great organic/fair trade cafe.  I had a slice of pear and almond bread/cake.  It was so fabulous I have been on the look out for a good recipe ever since.  I came across this one and while not quite the same as the one I had in the cafe, it's pretty darned good!  I left off the flaked almonds on the top as the kids don't like them.  Enjoy!