back to school

Back to school today!  The boys were all ready and excited about a new start for another school year.  Hugo was the most excited as this is his first year on main campus in a school uniform and he will go everyday from 8.45 to 3pm.

We now have a Pre primary, a Year 2 and a Year 5 and it is the first time in 10 years that I will have a whole week without children during the term.

Best of luck boys for an awesome year of learning and growing!

forever friendships

Cindy Donald

Forever friendships are hard to find and harder to keep.  The pace of life and physical distance can often pull against us.  I am very fortunate that some of my beautiful girlfriends have made such great effort to stay connected, to stay in my life.

Cindy Donald (Till) goes back 20 years in my life to a time before husbands and children, to a time of reckless partying, studying and career building.  Cindy has shared life's laughs and tears.  She has loved me through every stage of my life and has graced my home with yellow roses on every occasion when she couldn't be there in person.

What a joy it was to see Cindy, Ian and their beautiful children (all grown up now) for a few days in January.  They stopped off in Perth for a catch up on the way back to Brisbane from a holiday in South Africa.  We picked up where we left off and visited long forgotten places and memories in our conversations.  It was such a pleasure to see Stephen at 17, a young man with his dad's twinkle in his eye and his mom's great smile.  What a privilege to spend time with Kate, the fun loving 15 year old who I only knew as a little girl. 

Being with Cindy was like being home.  She means so much to me and our friendship has been enriched by life's experiences. 

I can't wait to see her again in July.

man world

I live in it. 

I am mostly immersed in burping and farting contests, boy jokes, dirt and inventions.  This house is full of lego, cars, sports gear and paper aeroplanes.  Whenever I sit down to blog I find one of two windows open on my pc:  Minecraft or Boat Sales.  We discuss the mechanics of just about everything.  Our conversations about girls sway between "uggh" and "mmmmm".  There's Billabong and Rip Curl to contend with and undies hanging out of pants.  I have to rotate the clothing piles to see these mini men in different colours and am constantly surprised at what I find in their drawers when I do.

Showering is an optional extra that requires some encouragement.  The default position on the toilets is up.  We do push ups and crunches.  We wrestle and fight.  We run races and arm wrestle or play "Ching, Chong, Cha" for position.  There are tool boxes everywhere and woodburners are fun.  We judge a stranger by the accessories on his scooter.  We build forts and tree houses.  We love camping and bugs.  There's always a table tennis contestant waiting to be challenged and masses of food being consumed.

The dog is our best friend and our enemy is Darth Vadar.  We fall asleep to the stories of Zac Power and dream of Pokemons and Dragons.

It's a man world alright.  Until Mom flashes her pink credit card or unpacks her lingerie work kit and the world starts to tilt off centre.

Recently Hugo and I entered a friend's house via the back yard to avoid waking the baby.  She has three beautiful girls and one boy.  Hugo stopped suddenly at the sight of all the pink and frills and exclaimed:  "Wow, they have a beautiful washline!"

Man world.  I love it.

Busselton Jetty

We ventured out on only one of our camping days and did the obligatory Margaret River Chocolate factory, the Olive Oil farm, a wine tasting and a picnic.  But the highlight of our day of adventure was definitely the Busselton Jetty. 

This famous jetty is almost 2km long as it was built to take timber to the ships in a very shallow bay.  It has been destroyed by a cyclone and a great fire but has now been restored to a beautiful winding snake into the ocean.  We loved taking the train to the end and visiting the underwater aquarium where we were fortunate to see many different fish, a scuba diver and beautiful corel that has grown around the pilons that make up the jetty's amazing structure.

This was the site of Masterchef's big ocean cook out and the boys really liked making that connection after being avid fans of the show.

It was a fun afternoon out, ending in a swim in the shade of the jetty, fish 'n chips for dinner on the banks and late night fishing with friends back on the famous landmark.

Australia Day #2

This time was a little different:  no fireworks; no city celebration for us.  We joined the country cousins, the retirees, the students and the holiday makers in a celebration of all that is great about being Australian and living in this beautiful country.  We headed out of the campsite early to beat the relentless midday sun and cooked our bacon and eggs Aussie style on the communal cookers at our favourite beach:  Meelup.  We just love this spot.  We took our positions under the shade of the gorgeous old trees and spent most of the day people and boat watching.

Everyone had a turn on the board, we played in the waves and watched the boats arrive one by one to anchor 100 metres off shore for an all night party.  The big Australian flag lilos (in the shape of a great big thong!) and beach balls were out.  The flags were waving if not draped illustriously around a babe.  It was a festive atmosphere of loving life and lapping up all that this great place has to offer.

Hilton and Matthew

How fortunate to have a holiday with such fun boys!

Shark Alert

On the first day of our holiday I took my SUP board out on the calm ocean for a practice paddle.  The sun was beating down on me and the tranquility of the moment swept me away.  So did the offshore wind apparently because I turned around to face the beach and hadn't realised that I had quickly paddled about 300 metres out.  It was around that moment that the shark alert helicopter flew quite low above me and circled me several times.  I somehow managed to remain calm and decided to focus on the task at hand of paddling safely back to shore.  At this stage I thought the helicopter was just having some fun and wanting to take a closer look at the lonely bikini clad SUP boarder out on the ocean.

I successfully landed the board and Rob got up to head out.  While he was out the Coastal Rangers arrived on the beach in their 4X4 and approached our small group.  They wanted to let me know that a shark had been circling my board and they were trying to calmly let me know that I should head back!!  The fact that the shark was less than 2 metres meant that they didn't put on the sirens and they thought it best not to frighten me off the board!  What a shock to my system.  It changed my view on SUP boarding for the rest of the week and I struggled to get past the 100 metre buoys without hearing the "Jaws" music reverberating in my head.  Sometimes it is better not to know too much.

Following a spate of nasty shark attacks in Western Australia, the government have implemented regular helicopter patrols on all the beaches and evacuations are now quite common place.  It seems the hungry preditors are coming closer to the shoreline in shallower water.  The fishermen in Busselton confirmed record catches in shallow waters which could mean the sharks are being drawn towards the beach.  Last week our local beach, Leighton,(where Rob does his Sunday morning swim) was evacuated at 9.30am because a shark could be seen from the beach!

So on this particular day, the wind, my pull on the paddle, and the current pushed me out to sea but an angel gently nudged me back to shore.