Is it my imagination or does life get
more
hectic as the years pass? Maybe our bodies just get less able to cope
with it
all! Certainly the children appear to have unending amounts of energy-
makes me
tired just watching them. On that cheery note let me say G'day from the
‘Downunder Watsons’, and a very merry Christmas to you all.
Last
Christmas we went camping close to
Sadly
it's looking as though the fire fighters may be busy again this
Christmas, as
the fires have started already and we are in the midst of a severe
drought
which isn't helping.
We
have had a busy year working studying
and playing. It started with our second visit to 'Delicate Nobby'; the
wonderful basic beachside camping area near Kempsey in
Abi
celebrated her 5th birthday in January
with a Teddy Bear party in the park which was very successful. We made
a Teddy
Bear shaped Piňata (a painted hollow thing made of papier maché and
filled with
sweets which you hang up and the kids hit it with a stick until it
breaks and
they then run about madly to collect the sweets). It was a bit
traumatic to
watch the little dears gaining so much pleasure out of beating a teddy
bear to
a pulp, cheering as it was dismembered etc. I don't think we'll do that
again!
Our second birthday mistake was with Sam's 7th birthday party in March-
a
camping sleepover for 8 children in the garden - and that was a REALLY
big
mistake. We got very cranky at 1am when they were still running riot,
and at
3am several of them burst into the Fossils' room searching for 'party
bags'.
They are going to have Discos for their next birthdays- much less
trouble.
As
I mentioned, the Fossils came out in
February. It was lovely to see them and especially good to see Jean
almost
recovered from the nasty car accident she was in last year. They stayed
with
us, then went to
Both children have been at school full time this year, Abi has now settled in and has made friends, it took a little while but she seems much more confident now. She is reading very well and loves books, and is obviously very artistic. Mike bought a very nice Yamaha organ from Revolve (our local rubbish tip recycling depot!) and Abi adores playing on it and is able to play a few tunes- She desperately wants to have piano lessons so we will try to organise that next year. She has also been bringing us the occasional surprise breakfast in bed which is very sweet but somewhat daunting- we awake to Abi bearing a big grin and carrying a tray upon which is her latest 'experiment' these usually involve an 'interesting' use of food combinations such as Picalilli on toast (she couldn't find the marmalade); black olives, strawberries and passionfruit on dry bread; and Hommos and marmalade on bread (she couldn't find the margarine!) We have grown to dread the prospect of breakfast in bed and Abi is getting a cookbook for Christmas!
Sam
continues to do well and has definitely
got his father's maths abilities (as opposed to his mother's, thank
goodness!)
He is an avid reader, and collects rocks, insects, and various junk
which
usually gets left in his pockets and goes through the washing machine-
so he has
lots of clean rocks and dead insects! He remains an unstoppable
chatterbox (why
use 1 word when 10 will do), and is often in such a rush to say things
that
he's incomprehensible- so we're working on slowing him down a bit!
His
morning speciality is making us a cup
of tea which really is very nice (so this is why we had children!) We
have
finally managed to persuade him to make it upstairs rather than down
however as
we had kittens finding him carrying a full tray with 2 cups, a milk jug
and a
pot of boiling tea up the stairs, with Abi coming up behind him holding
his
pyjama bottoms up because the elastic had gone, and they had dropped to
his
ankles halfway upstairs ……
Both
children performed in the school
talent quest recently doing a clown act which was hastily thrown
together but
well received. Certainly the children in the audience enjoyed a
humorous break
from all the very clever, but not particularly entertaining piano
playing.
I
have been at Uni all year having swapped
from 'Nutrition' to a nursing degree in order to speed up the time it
will take
to get my final qualification. I have now graduated from this degree
and am
going back to do an Applied Science graduate diploma in Public Health
Nutrition
next year- which I'm really looking forward to. Hopefully after that I should be back in the workforce in my
chosen field.
November
saw me coordinating the cake stall
for the school fete which raised $17,000 (the whole fete that is, not
the cake
stall!). The fete was held 3 days before my last exam, so that week was
a
fairly stressful period for me! I have
also been helping with school banking once a week, listening to kids
read twice
a week, helping in the school canteen occasionally and am a member of
the
executive P&C committee. So I am keeping busy!
Mike
here: I have been a very busy at work;
for most of the year I have been working on the biggest investigation
we have
ever done, looking at the problems at Ansett before it went bust. The report is now finished and out on the
streets, which is a big relief. I have
also been working on a fatal mid air collision that happened in the
middle of
the year, as well and is preparing, planning and exercising in case
there is a
major accident, so that the Bureau can respond properly.
We
headed back to the
We
then spent 5 days with Sally down at
Rock in
Exhausted
from our “holiday' we headed back
to Oz and straight back to work / school / study for a rest.
We
have had a traumatic year with chickens.
Our 2 older chooks, Jo and Issie both died but were at least old and
had
stopped laying. Our 3 younger ones, Charlotte, Amelia and Henrietta are
all
well but Amelia decided to become broody in the midst of winter and so
we had
to resort to putting ice cubes under her bottom to stop her from
sitting! In
the spring we allowed her to sit and after a suitable time slipped 2
chicks
under her at night. Unfortunately she woke up and attacked me as I was
introducing the chicks and one of them ran away and was found frozen to
death,
having squeezed through the fence to next door. She has successfully
raised the
other chick, Spot, who is now 13 weeks old and well. Because we wanted
more
than 1 chick we tried to hand raise 2 more but one got sick and died
and the
other was accidentally stepped on by Sam as it followed his feet, not
having a
mother to follow, poor thing.
With
the drought we are trying to reduce
water use and I wanted to use our washing machine water to water the
back
garden. I mentioned the idea to Mike and he immediately set to work to
make it
happen. I'll let him explain how:
We
started first by trying to get the
outflow water to drain the through a hose onto the back garden. The problem was that the flow was so slow
that the washing machine got bored and started on the next cycle before
all the
water had drained from the machine, and the washing remained soapy and
dirty. The first fix was to use another
washing machine drain pump to boost the flow rate, but that still did
not get
enough water out of the machine in time.
The next cunning plan was to use only a short piece of hose, and
to fill
a large drum outside the back door. I
then bought an old industrial swimming pool pump from Revolve, and used
that to
create a truly ferocious flow rate, which is sufficient to drive of the
Rotary
lawn sprinkler. A couple of electric
kits for sensing water depth, and a large relay, and the system is now
automatic-ish, spectacular, and would put Heath Robinson to shame.
In
October we went along to the annual
Tandem rally, this time in Port Stephens in
Our
Sunday Supper tradition continues, we
now have 3 families involved on a regular basis. Catherine, Hannah and
Sam
Walker from across the road, and Sanae and Frederick Boukaert, and
their
children Koh (7) and Erica (4), who are friends who moved back to
Canberra in
June after 2 years in Jabiru in the Northern Territory. We usually
decide on a
theme such as vegetarian, Thai, Italian etc. and we all make different
dishes
and produce some wonderful meals. The children also cook- usually
desserts-
sometimes we end up with 3 desserts which is a bit hard going!
We're having Christmas at home this year, together with the Boukaerts but it won't be 'traditional', it's usually too hot to cook Turkey and all the trimmings, so we tend to have that at a 'Christmas in July' celebration and at real Christmas we'll have smoked salmon, mussels, salads, and other cold foods as well as luscious desserts. We do have a Christmas cake though, and we'll make mince pies as well.
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