October to December 2020

October

Well where do I start ? Today is Monday 29^th March 2021 and I can’t believe we are still here in Australia. This morning the girls have gone off to school, Adam and TJ have retired to their office to start work and Bob is at the golf range and I am organising a coffee and lunch with friends when facebook and the news are alive with “Brisbane going into Lockdown for 3 days”. Here we go again … Schools will close, bars, cafes and restaurants closed. Need to cancel everything and I have to think of things to keep the girls occupied for 3 days – fun fun fun…

Now back to the blog, so I have been far too busy or maybe lazy and I haven’t continued to write the blog but I have been making notes !

Lets go back to October and it really doesn’t seem like we have been here almost a year ! However, the summer is on its way and the average temperature is definitely climbing, we have the fan on slow all night and no cardigans needed at all.

1st October saw Lucy start her new job, thank goodness she managed to find another so quickly at the University, she must be well thought of for them to have her back again ? lol Mia has gone to vacation club at the school as they have a silent disco today so she is happy. My head hurts, I have a bit of a cough and feeling tired think I might have caught a chill at the swimming pool yesterday but I plod on and make the girls heat transfer vinyl designs on some cheap t shirts TJ picked up. Must say I am delighted with the results – what else can I print on ??

After a usual busy Friday with the girls and a playdate in the park, Pizza for dinner with a group of Mums and their children, the girls are exhausted and go off to bed. Tj and I wanted to see a film called High Note about a superstar singer but the boys weren’t keen so we decided to go on our own. The cinema in Bulimba is a little one and the carpark is next door but the sign said it was full – really ?

Anyway we enjoyed the film and the parking was easy lol.

Saturday the girls have a dental check up appointment, however, we had the girls friends over for a play and all of a sudden TJ remembered the appointment so flew out the door leaving their friends with us, luckily their mum turned up soon after to pick them up. Dentist was very pleased with them both but Mia has a very small mouth and her teeth are very tight in her mouth so she needs an x-ray for him to see what is going on. Unfortunately her mouth is too small for their smallest x-ray thing so she has to make an appointment to go to a proper clinic to get a round the head x-ray. Adam and TJ missed Bobs birthday and our anniversary as they were away up in Noosa camping in a hired camper last weekend so they promised us a Turkish meal at a great restaurant Saturday night to celebrate. During the week they realised that they still had the keys for the camper in their car so we had to drop them off on the way to the restaurant. Unfortunately the Sultan Restaurant is closing down as the owner is retiring and no one in the family wants to carry on – shame because it was a lovely meal.

Birthday dinner at The Sultan Restaurant

Sunday and the weather is warm and the girls want to go swimming again — Back to the Plantation swim pool, it’s still cold but I don’t go in further than my thighs this time as my chest is a bit tight. I think we should have our own pool Adam and TJ with solar heating ??? While the girls have a nap after all that swimming Adam and Bob complete the trellis that they have been building to hold the vegetables up in the garden and we have a family discussion about where we would put a camper trailer which entails Bob doing a lot of digging maybe ?

Early in the week I am coughing bad now and think I should visit the doctor but he won’t see me in person so I make a phone call appointment and he says I have to have a covid test ! So Wednesday afternoon Bob takes me to the clinic and I get my brain tickled and my throat poked which makes my eyes water and then I have to send in a sputum sample the next day. The negative result comes in 24 hrs later and the sputum shows I have a bad chest infection. I have to take a course of antibiotics and rest but I find that difficult so I potter around in the mornings but put my feet up and start a new book in the afternoons. By Saturday I am feeling a bit better so I go with Bob to get his eyes tested. He has varifocal glasses transition lenses that go dark in the sun but like last time the transition coating is failing and little holes are appearing in the coating. We didn’t intend to buy new ones but on chatting to the optician they said he could have a new set of glasses with transition coating for $299 which would get him through the summer months here so we ordered them. In the afternoon I was making some scrunchies for the girls hair and Mia got interested in how I made them so asked if I would show her. She was so excited to have a go on the sewing machine and helped make her own scrunchie.

Sunday morning the girls came into our bed for cuddles and a chat and while we were having showers they thought it would be funny to imitate us.

Cheeky Monkeys pretending to be Nannie and Grandad !

Mia’s Joey Scout group are going on a bear hunt in the city. Adam has offered to be a helper parent and Tj was going too but she has started to feel unwell – oops I think she has my virus causing chest infection. They spent the whole day hunting down the bear but had a great day.

Mia in the City with her Joey Scout friends looking for a Bear !

In the meantime Bob and I took Zoe to her friend Willa’s birthday party at a girls spa centre where she had her nails done, face painted and hair glittered!

Zoe showing off her face paint and nails

By Monday morning TJ just wasn’t well enough to work so she booked a drs appointment expecting to be told to go and get a Covid test – haha how does she do it, the dr said that as I had had a negative one so recently then she didn’t need to, she probably had the virus and chest infection I had. He signed her off work for a couple of days but Thursday she still wasn’t well enough for work so he signed her off til next Monday. To cheer her up I made trifles – the girls had asked if they could have individual trifles and I have been saving yoghurt pots to make them in and as it happens I now have 6. The girls helped cut up the sponge and put the fruit in and Mia stirred the jelly. They were concerned that we wouldn’t know whose was whose so I had to write names on them and this is what we had for dessert on Monday night ….

Zoe was so excited to have so much until we said she had to save some for tomorow !

Wednesday Adam took Mia to Joey Scouts as usual but stopped to talk to the leaders as he has decided that as Zoe will start Joeys in the new Year that it is time to get back into Scouting and has offered his services. They are delighted as they know he has a wealth of experience having helped out on various occasions. He has to go through the training but then he can be an assistant leader with the Joeys and then maybe move up to Cubs later and then Scouts in years to come. If he has as much fun as Bob and I had with our children in Scouting then he won’t go far wrong.

Friday morning Bob and I went out to do some shopping while the termite man was checking the house and spraying, he had suggested it would be better to be out of the house. When we returned he was still here so Bob and I decided to go across to the Leagues club for a coffee and a bit of lunch. We called Adam and TJ to say we were having lunch there and if they wanted to join us when the termite man had gone? Very soon they joined us and we had a lovely lunch and chat – I think they felt like they were playing hookie from work ? lol. The Friday night games were a bit different this week, Adam has bought a second hand playstation and set up the SingStar Karaoke game in the Rumpus room. Although I really don’t like karaoke we had a lovely evening and Zoe sang her little heart out to Mama Mia and Frozen, we will do this again.

The weekend was going to be chilled and quiet but we ended up having Mias friend Malar stay from Saturday lunch until Sunday lunch. Adam was working in the garden with Bob and I was writing my blog so Tj took the girls on the ferry to a new park and then we joined them in Bulimba for an Indian dinner and NOM NOM Ice-cream for afters, we were all amazed that Malar hadn’t ever had this ice cream – its amazing and you get 2 flavours in a cone for $3.50 – what’s not to like ?

The girls were all worn out by the time they got to bed with such a busy day and their sleepover lasted about 10 mins before they all crashed ! Sunday morning Tj brought out some Aquabeads for the girls to play with – you make shapes and designs with coloured beads and then pour water over them to make them sticky and they stick together. An hour later you can play with them – Malar loved this so much that when her dad came to pick her up she asked him if she could save her money to buy some. bless.

Mia had a Mango tree bought for her when she was born and it has moved 3 times with her and finally this year it has gone mad with flowers and fruit – hoping for a bumper harvest . Zoe had a lemon tree but unfortunately it didn’t survive so Mummy and Daddy bought a new dwarf Lemon tree a few months ago and grandad has found lemons on it already !We know that you should take them off for the first couple of years to allow the tree to establish itself but we thought we would keep just a couple of lemons ? On Sunday afternoon when Malar had gone we all visited the Garden Centre and bought some new herbs to replace the ones that had gone to seed and some vegetables for the newly finished veggie patch – Capsicum, Tomatoes (transferred from old veggie patch) Chillies, Spring Onions and Beetroot.

Zoe had my phone and wanted to take a photo … and talking to Auntie Lucy who is excited that the builders are coming tomorrow to start work on her house !!!

Lucys house, Scaffolding up and ready to start bricklaying

Wednesday 21^st October was a very busy day, it started when I realised that the Spanish car tax was overdue and it had not been taken out of my Spanish account although I had set up a direct debit! It took me the best part of the day, emailing, facebooking and asking friends for help before I finally found a webpage that I could pay the bill with a small fine for being late! Trying to sort stuff in Spain in spanish when you are 16,000 kms away is very stressful ! In between my messaging I wandered into the garden and accidentally stepped on a piece of wood with a nail sticking out of it, luckily I had fairly thick slippers on so it only just pierced my skin – but I made Bob pay for leaving it there !!!

This week TJ had taken Zoe to her new school for a couple of hours to see her teacher and where she would be going in January when she starts school, she was so confident that while TJ was chatting with other parents, Zoe wandered off, when TJ asked where she was going, she said, “to find Mia, don’t worry I know where I am going”. TJ quickly explained that she couldn’t go wandering off but then Zoe spotted Mia at the toilets and ran screaming “Mia” towards her, they hugged and then she was happy. Its so nice to see them getting on so well.

I also started to make a foot stool for the lounge as TJ can’t find what she wants to buy so Bob and I offered to build one! Adam did have to buy me an air staplegun as he has a new compressor in the garage and it made it so easy to attach the material. We found some pallets and knocked up a shape and size and then covered it with some foam we had in the garage and I bought some material to match the hall seat to cover it. It took us a few days but it was a great project and everyone uses it.

Adam and TJ were thinking of buying a folding camper (half caravan and half tent) or have a pool put into the garden. TJ with her research head on found the perfect camper, however, the cost when analysed by Adam was very high and they decided that it would be cheaper to hire it 2 or 3 times a year rather than buy and taking into account the devaluation and maintenance costs – so the pool it is then. Back to the research, so over the next few days we visited several pool company showrooms and talked to everyone we could find… the search goes on…

I must say I’m not a fan of Halloween but the girls had lots of fun with their friends who came over ,they all went out to tap up the neighbours for sweets, returning with a basket full each.

November

The month started with Mia going to the doctors for what he said was a possible spider bite, she had a red mark on her leg that appeared after school and it seemed to be bothering her, she got a couple of days at home but the cream he prescribed soon cleared it up thank goodness. Wednesday Mia also had a promotion at Joey Scouts to Assistant Patrol Leader, we all, as a family , went to the Scout hut to witness her getting her new badge (another for nannie to sew on).

Mia gets promoted to Assistant Patrol Leader at Joey Scouts

One evening we went to the cinema, which we haven’t done for a while – saw a film about sheep farmers – afraid it wasn’t the best – can’t even remember the name of it but then we had dinner at London Spice, one of our favourite Indian restaurants. Another evening Adam and TJ went to an Axe throwing evening with their friends, they offered to get a babysitter in so we could go too but we declined and let them have an evening out – apparently it was hilarious – the photo I think shows we were wise to stay away, but no one got hurt – amazingly !

The weather is getting hot and we are using the deck and BBQ more but the fan in the ceiling is just a normal size, which isn’t big enough for the area so Tj found a warehouse having a sale so off they went and came back with an enormous 8ft fan – it was soon appreciated when we hosted a lunch with one family and a dinner with another over the weekend. I met the mum of one of TJs friends and we arranged to have a coffee together in the week, Rai and I had so much to chat about as we seem to have lots in common – this is the start of a beautiful friendship I hope.

More research on the pool, deciding whether to go for a fibreglass pool or a concrete one, do we have salt or mineral pump and water, what is the best size for the garden and orientation etc. ? Every pool man that comes to the house to talk to us gives us different answers – confusing ! However one pool man was very interesting and he took a photo of the garden and superimposed the pool so we could see what it would look like – fabulous technology.=

I haven’t felt too well for a while and I have a cough, covid tested so it’s not that, dr sent me for tests and they came back with a question mark – need to see a specialist so I have booked an appointment. In the meantime we had a busy week, breakfast out at Bulimba, our favourite village, where the electricity went off so no lights and the smoothie maker broke too so we couldn’t have coffee good job the oven was gas and the breakfast was lovely. Bob and I had a round of golf and Friday night TJ and I tried a Thai restaurant called Chu the Phat with her Mummy Group friends – very nice food but strange name ?

The lung specialist said nothing to worry about, I have had a virus, (not Covid) and I just have inflammation and infection still in my lungs, take it easy he said – I try ??? In the evening we went out to the Sushi Train restaurant with the KPs (their name is Kanapathapillai so we call them the KPs).

Its getting towards the end of November so we are inundated with drama shows, dance concerts, birthday parties and end of year class get togethers. Because of Covid, a craft show I was looking forward to was cancelled and Santa didn’t turn up at the girls Christmas photo shoot so we took our own photos.

Because the news is all about Covid, to cheer us up TJ suggested we put the christmas decs up early so Bob and Adam spend half the weekend putting up the outside lights and TJ and I put the tree and inside decs up.

A couple of deers and a kangaroo of course !

DECEMBER

On the first of December Lily Elf arrived, the girls were so excited and have talked about it for weeks. School finishes next week for the summer break so I manage to get a morning coffee session in at Rai’s house, her friends Karyn, Di and Carol are also there. I do feel so much better when I have had a good natter and a laugh with them. Bob and I managed a round of golf on Thursday and then took the girls to their extra make up swim class straight after school. Friday Mia has drama after school and Zoe went along this week as a guest and then their normal swimming class too so they are very tired after dinner but not too tired for Friday games night.

Lily has already started to surprise the girls

The weekend was filled with fruit and veg market shopping, Malar”s (KP) birthday party was at a beauty salon for the girls where they got a facial and makeover. In the afternoon 3 of their friends came for a few hours while their parents moved out of their house, ready for a reno. Then to finish off the weekend, a BBQ and a swim at friends on Sunday which was nice to just relax and let someone else look after us.

Mia was finishing year 1 school on Wednesday 9th, Bob was out getting a haircut while I had coffee with the girls at a café near the city and as we waited for our coffee a man came in and asked if we were the “chirpy girls” I thought he was referring to our laughter so said yes we were and he pulled up a chair and sat down. Haha we laughed and asked him if he was looking for someone and he said yes the Chirpy Club !! Apparently there was another part to the café outside and he went off to see if they were there. He didn’t come back so we assumed he found them but when I went to the toilet later the group he was sitting with were nothing like “chirpy” at all! In the evening Adam was invested into Australia Scouts, now that Mia and soon Zoe are in Scouts he thought it would be the right time to get involved again. Thursday was Zoe’s Graduation from Kindy, unfortunately because of Covid only 1 parent was allowed to attend to see it so TJ went and took a few photos

The summer rains are here, it hasn’t stopped raining this week, the scouts party is cancelled so we have the girls in the house. Would you believe that if you give 2 little girls a bag of old makeup they can occupy themselves for 2 hrs – however they did use virtually a whole packet of wet wipes. Bobs golf is cancelled too, the course is flooded – Mr Grumpy . We make jam and cookies with the girls and when there is a break in the rain we took them to the park for a run around. The washing is piling up but there is no point in washing as it would be hanging around the house – better to go out and play.

Ana from my girls group has invited us all to her house for a Christmas coffee morning, so lots of homemade cakes as Ana is a very good cook. Mia and Zoe are at vacation club most days, Zoe can go too now as she starts school in January but we do get some days with them. Zoe wanted to go out for coffee so we took her to the local coffee shop and bought her a babychino and a cake, she thought it was great. Now she wants to come out with my friends on a coffee morning ?

Mia’s friend Aralya wanted to have a sleepover so as it is a few days before christmas we decide to do a drive round to see the many beautifully decorated houses in the area. Then we took her to Berkdale Fish and Chip shop where you can get the best Fish and Chips in Brisbane. Amazingly she tells us she has never had fish and chips before ??

Christmas is approaching and we are thinking about Lucy and the family turning up on the doorstep last Christmas – she assures me it won’t be happening again this Christmas – sad we miss them all so much. However, their house Reno is coming along well and they are so excited that their dream is finally happening, albeit 4.5 years late! This is about 8 weeks into the reno, the old roof and and new one in progress, upstairs layout being decided.

Adam and TJ have decided to try out the camper they liked – it has no poles as the whole tent bit is blown up with air. We popped down to the Gold Coast to see the guy who is hiring us the camper and he sets it up and takes it down to show us how easy it is and we agree to pick it up the day before we go to give us time to pack it. . Then we went off for lunch and the girls have some time playing in the park. They have chosen a campsite north of here called the Borumba Deer Park and we will go on Zoes 5^th birthday on Tuesday 29^th December for a few days and celebrate the new year away with the KP family. We have decided that we want family camping Tshirts so I set to to design and make one each for the camp trip.

Christmas day we spent at home, we chatted to all the family and played with the girls and had a BBQ lunch.

T shirts on, camper packed and ready to go

On the morning of Zoe’s birthday she opened her presents and then we set off for the campsite. The weather forecast was a bit iffy but hey we can do it. Booked into the campsite we start to set up the camper, we have precooked dinner so we can just warm it to save time. The warden comes round to say that there is s storm coming, to batten down the tent as the winds across the field can be very strong !!! Well it rained and rained and rained all night and Wednesday morning it was still raining. Not good but when there was a lull Tj took the girls to the park to play and omg they had so much fun in the puddles and mud – most of their clothes had to be binned but so what !

The tent was fine but as you stepped out of the camper the ground was sodden and the gazebo we had outside was leaking badly so Adam and Bob went off to the town to try and find a new one. This helped but the water still ran into the groundsheet and the chairs were getting wetter and everything was damp. We managed to have a firepit in the evening and roasted marshmallows over the fire but then the rain came again so we headed for bed.

The next morning was New Years eve and we heard that more rain was forecast, after breakfast we had a family meeting and decided that as the tent was more or less dry now, if we were considering leaving and going home, now was the time to make the decision. Hands up it was decided – pack up! While the men did this we went to the Office and told them we were leaving and there behind the counter, was a baby deer, only a couple of weeks old. It didn’t seem bothered by people so the girls stroked it and had photos taken with it. As we drove home, the black clouds followed us and we heard that the storm was very fierce so we were glad we had left. The KPs came back to ours to celebrate the new year with us and they stayed overnight and had breakfast in the morning before they set off home to empty their camper.