Update from down here

We are offline at the moment at home - I moved the computer from our room to the boys room as part of our selling the house clean up and it's not connected to the internet just now. Not sure if Ian will get round to reconnecting us, or if we'll just live without it until the house sells (suppose that depends on how long the whole thing takes).
Anyway, in the meantime, it's best that you send emails to me at work. I am getting in to the home email account at work but it'll be easier for me to have stuff coming in to the one inbox.
We were very busy this weekend past.
Ian went up to Brisbane on Thursday to do some auditing or training for work and stayed up there for the weekend, going to see Jono and Narelle and grandson bump in Kingaroy for the weekend. They are all doing well and were very hospitable. At the moment the baby's name is Fraser George. I like it.
Meanwhile the kids and I dashed about. Three separate lots of footy training on Thursday night, three lots of footy matches on Saturday. Couldn't get by without friends to help us out. Jamie went to his Aussie rules match with his coach - via the coach's daughter's netball game! Did the shopping while sport was going on so missed most of the games over the weekend I'm afraid. No one won.
On Saturday night we went up to the Megalong Valley for a bush dance with Sharon and Holly and Janet, Steven and Georgia. We had initially planned to go to The Tartan Ball in Springwood this weekend but then Sharon found out about the bush dance. The Tartan Ball was $52 per person and formal and we'd have needed to find a babysitter whereas the bush dance was $15 for adults, free for kids and informal. Not hard to guess why we chose to go to the bush dance.
We had a lot of fun. Everyone had a dance - boys and girls, old and young. It was quite a hoot as people tried to remember the instructions the band leader had given us for the dancing! It is certainly an excellent form of cardio-vascular exercise.
We had such fun that we are going to see the band again when they play in Springwood in September. We'll have to see if we can rope in a big crowd.
It was after 11pm when we got home. We were luckier than Steven and Janet though, they got held up by an accident - a very drunk man who Steven had to rescue from the car, almost getting thumped for his efforts. We'd missed it by minutes, just saw the police cars racing up the mountain.
On Sunday we had a lot to do to prepare the house for sale. Rob wanted to go to RFS Cadet training for the last time - the boys are being interviewed for adult membership this Thursday - so we were at the station at 9am. Unfortunately we didn't realise the training wouldn't be on - the Woodford to Glenbrook classic and training wasn't on.
Disappointing for Robbie but it meant I had his help for more time, and he's a good worker.
I had them clearing and cleaning and scrubbing and sweeping.
A photographer was booked for 1pm on Monday to take photos for the websites and the advertising stuff for the estate agents and the place needed to look just so. I'll post the web pages once they are available.
When I tasked Ishbel with sweeping the paths in the front garden she was grumbling why did she have to do it. "What's your motivation here?" I asked her. "The sooner we sell the house, the more likelihood there is that we can buy that house in Blaxland." She was happy to work then.
Anyway - the house is now completely transformed and looking a lot less cluttered. On Monday morning the estate agent had a sort of open house for other estate agents (the different companies tend to collaborate) so that they were aware of what's available and can offer to show it to people. When she rang to talk to me she said the house looked very cottagy and comfortable. She has arranged for a potential buyer to view on Saturday morning around 10am. Hopefully Ian will have the place looking spick and span - I am away this weekend with the RFS doing an orienteering/navigation competition. I have the children warned to keep the place clear and thus far (3 days only) they have been very very good.