Oh no, it just got worse!

I've tried getting a sound clip of someone reciting Ae Fond Kiss by Robert Burns.

This is what I found Ae fond kiss recited by Robert Garrison - what makes an American think he can recite Burns?

I'm going to need some serious therapy.

Last weekend

Last weekend was supposed to be Ishbel's last weekend of soccer. It was hard enough to get her to make that one last appearance; not sure if she took on board that they are expected back again this weekend!! Might let Ian tackle that.

Around taking Ishbel to soccer, we cleaned out the shed and the area under the house and deck ready for the move. Our friend, Bec, came with her trailer and helped us and diffused the tension when Ian and I disagreed over what should stay and what should go - and almost every single item had to be negotiated despite Ian having told me before we got up that morning that he was quite resigned to throwing stuff out.

ANYWAY (deep breaths, HC, deep breaths), two and a half trailer loads to the tip and two loads to storage later the shed is empty except for shelving and there is just the old lounge suite lurking under the house. Getting everything into the storage facility was a bit of a squeeze - we all but held stuff in as we pulled down the roller door. Bec also took a trailer load to her house saying they wouldn't need the trailer before we move and that we could store that load with them. When I spoke to her yesterday, however, she said they'd had to unload the trailer - Steve decided he wanted to get soil and mulch and such for digging a garden!

Sunday was a far more civilised affair. In the morning Rob, Ishbel, Ian and I went round antique shops looking to see if we could find a tall boy. Three non-existent antique shops (don't believe the Pink Pages, Karen) and four really ones later we still hadn't found what we were looking for. But that's OK. I just wanted to check there was nothing out there before we buy from a 'normal' furniture shop.

And it got much better for me in the afternoon when I headed off to Lilianfels in Katoomba (picture of the lounge below) for my book group where we discussed the delightful The Uncommon Reader.

Meanwhile Rob was at his mate Nick's house for the afternoon. Jamie was playing golf as an end of season outing with his AFL team and Ishbel had Ruby over to play. Ian pottered about sticking up the polystyrene he'd got from work for insulating the underside of the house.

Proof I've been working way way too hard . . .

I've had an RSS feed going for a little while, keeping me uptodate on a number of blogs on all sorts of topics, mainly books or librarianship, but some fun ones too.

One of my feeds is the Guardian newspapers books blog. I was initially intrigued by the post heading: Classic Poetry gets the Jackson treatment. Can you imagine my horror however, when I followed the link to an article entitled Michael Jackson goes into studio with Robert Burns. Apparently poems featured on the album include Ae Fond Kiss and Tam O'Shanter.

OMG, it's going to take a while to recover from the thought. Where are my smelling salts?

Holy Blog Of Doom, Batman!

Holy Blog Of Doom, Batman! I just returned from my daily swim on the beautiful Fijian beach and realised I have not updated this since I had to start working to pay the ridiculous food and petrol prices to feed my kids... You would not believe that I'd been abducted by aliens. Apologies to my regular readers! Even the little blue ones!.

I am lost in a sea of pseudo-olde-english with a weight-lifting regime, a ticking crocodile, just generally being a nuisance to various lawyers I met recently, my day often feels wasted from the first cockadoodledoo from the rooster to I am begging my kid to go to sleep or so help me God that kid will be decorating my wall, 'Duct tape still life'. I am convinced that I absolutely deserve this after all my hard work. it will be fun fun fun till they take my TBird away.

I swear on the bones of my ancestors I will make more of an effort to blog more often until the nice men in the white coats come back. Fully! Assuming I don't get distracted by counting my chest hairs..


Posted using The Lazy Bloggers Post Generator

And we'll be living in a wild life sanctuary

Found out why it's called Red-Crowned Court.
Apparently the garden is half native plantings, and has to be maintained as such forever, because it's a protected habitat for the endangered Red-crowned toadlet or Pseudophryne australis

Red-crowned Toadlet Fact File
Despite its name, this is not a toad but a colourful little frog. It is restricted to the Hawkesbury sandstone areas surrounding Sydney. It is easy to identify by the bright orange-red triangle or 'T' shape on its head and a stripe on its lower back of the same colour. On its belly is a striking, marbled, black and white pattern.
The calls of Red-crowned Toadlets can be heard all year round. They call several times in quick succession, as these frogs commonly live in small colonies and answer each other.
The Red-crowned Toadlet breeds in damp leaf litter. Hatching occurs when the tadpoles are well developed and the site has had heavy rainfall. Until then, the male frog usually stays close to the developing eggs, but this is probably to defend the breeding site rather than the eggs.
Distribution:Sydney.
Habitat: Forests and woodlands, heath (Hawkesbury sandstone only).
Status: Uncommon
Size: Up to 3 cm.

Coincidence . . . or is it just a small world?

I was getting my hair done today and mentioned to Robyn, my hairdresser, that since I'd seen her last we'd sold and bought a house. I told her it was not far from where we were (the shopping centre at Winmalee), in Red-Crowned Court.
"What number?" she asked.
"Four."
"No way!"
Turns out Robyn has house-sat there a couple of times for previous occupants (RAAF people now up in Queensland).
She said the lady used to feed the birds and heaps of
rainbow lorikeets, king parrots and cockatoos come into the garden.

Robyn said the birds are so used to people they will sit on your arms!

Lurking under the house

Years and years ago, when the boys were tiny we had this old wooden three piece suite. They got a bit worn and sad and so we bought a couple of Ikea couches. We popped the old suite under the house, thinking we might do it up . . . one day.
Well, we've come to that day. With two living areas in the new house we need another lounge suite. After skimming through furniture catalogues, I remembered these beauties were lurking under the house and thought it might be an idea to get a quote to get them done.
I called a local furniture restoration man and his quote, although not small, seems to be a reasonable thing and we should end up with beautiful furniture that will appreciate in value, rather than new stuff that will not.
The wood will be stripped back and French polished. The wicker work bits in the backs and and arms will be replaced. The fabric will be removed and replaced and cushions for the seats and backs made.
The upholsterer came on Friday with his fabric samples. Unlike our Fiona, I can't visualise what something will look like from a 5x5cm square of fabric so I really struggled. I narrowed it down to the fabrics in just one book (good work) and persuaded the man to leave me the book to share with Ian.
By the time Ian came home I had little post-it notes sticking out on all four sides of the big fabric samples book. Between us we discarded each post-it note until we had one we both liked. Funnily I'd started off looking at cream, blue and green fabrics (the carpets in the new place are light blue) and we've ended up choosing a deep pink. That was a bit out of left field! It has a criss-cross pattern in gold, not unlike the fabric you see in the photos here.
Anyway we got Roey and Karen to look at our choice while they were here on Sunday and they both approved it so if it looks horrible we'll be able to shift the blame nicely.

Can't wait to see how it all turns out. Watch this space.

Another weekend gone

It was a bit less frantic on the sporting front this weekend.

Robbie's rugby league season is finished. All he had was a presentation in the morning.

Ishbel's soccer team had a bye so they just met up at Springwood High School for a knockabout. It didn't matter that we arrived late. Or that Elki and Lily didn't come so that Ishbel was the only girl.

After the soccer we came home and picked Jamie up for his Aussie Rules game. It was on just near the shopping centre with Aldi in it so Ishbel and I dropped him off and headed for the shops. In the car park we were tracked down by Ian and Robbie who were finished and said they'd bring Jamie home so Ish and I could finish the shopping and take it straight home. Ian was going to drop Rob off at his mate Harley's house.

On Sunday we had another birthday lunch for Ishbel. This time Roey and Al B came up (Pete was working and Jack was at a party) and Karen and Ben (Dan was doing a First Aid course). Spent all morning getting the lunch ready.

Except that is, for taking a look under the house to see what could be put away in to the storage place. Hardly found anything - most of the STUFF under the house is only fit for the tip. However, we need to borrow a trailer to get it there so that's next weekend's project.

After lunch we piled in to Roey's car to take her to see our new house - just from the outside. We were passing the end of Karen's street (sort of) so we swung past her house and let Roey see that too for the first time. Then all the way out to Winmalee. I think Roey liked both houses.

Here's a fun game, inspired by comedian Ross Noble who I heard on the radio the other day asking: If you were a shape, what colour would you be?

That launched Ishbel and I on several minutes of silliness.

• If you were a hot water bottle, where would you go on your holidays?
• If you were a tomato, would you wear a bikini or a one-piece?
• If you were a chocolate biscuit, what public transport would you use?

Can anyone think of any more? Or answers to these ones?

Birthday Girl

It's a day early but we had our birthday celebration cake today.


Ishbel decided to do the honours herself, taking care not to get burned by the matches.











Grinning and bearing it through the typical Cowan/Colquhoun tone-deaf rendition of "Happy Birthday". The things you have to put up with for a few presents . . .


















Big puff and it's out.


















At (almost) 8, Ishbel is now old enough to cut the cake herself.













And made sure the Mad-Aunt-in-the-cupboard (wearing her OTHER stripy shirt!) got her piece!

Whirlwind weekend

Another weekend spent at full tilt. We were up early on Saturday and trying to get the grocery shopping done and be back for the sporting events.
Ian took Ishbel to soccer while I did the shopping. I missed out on seeing her score her first goal. She surprised everyone, including herself and almost scored another one shortly after, so high was she on adrenalin.
Playing tag, Ian took the groceries home and got the boys ready for their sports. Meanwhile the soccer team were having a little party - it being Gala Day, some organised members had sausages cooked for sausage sandwiches and the Coach had brought a birthday cake for Ishbel. I was very touched by that kind gesture.
Ishbel and I were home long enough for her to have a quick shower then we had to go back down to Penrith to collect Jamie from his AFL match. After taking the scenic route, we arrived in time for the last quarter. Ish was very impressed - Jamie appeared to be playing the Sydney Swans. No wonder they lost badly!!
Rob and Ian had further afield to travel for Rob's game and were back in time to help with the last of the preparations for dinner. It is our friend Janet's birthday so we had her and her family and some other friends for dinner.

Up early again this morning for RFS training - we did off-road driving and recovery - winching the PC out of trouble - fun!.
Ian had the kids up relatively early too and down to Penrith to get some gear for Jamie who is off to the snow this week on a Leadership Camp with school.
Back home I shoved a cake in the oven and we are just now waiting for Auntie Karen, Dan and Ben to arrive to share it with us.

SOCCOR GAME

On Saturday I had my soccer match and I scored my first goal ever!
I was so excited I did a cartwheel.
I got a Gala Day ribbon.

My Award

On Friday I got an award I was serprised.

LOVE: ISHBEL !!!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

4 Red Crown Court

Karen very kindly took a picture of our new house.

Beijing Olympic fame

Our nephew, Al (16), is in Beijing with the Beijing 2008 Olympic Orchestra which is made up of kids from all over the world.

On August 3, the orchestra became the first foreign group to perform on Tiananmen Square. They have also played on the Great Wall of China.

How about that for cool?

Here is a picture of one of their practice sessions. That's Al in the front in the red t-shirt.

You can follow the progress of the band via their official website here. Make sure you check out the Multimedia & Press tab for video of the performances at Tiananmen Square and the Great Wall.

Wild and windy

Friday night/Saturday morning it blew a gale out there. It stopped around 3am - I know this because I was awake most of the night, worrying whether I was going to have to bush bash to Canberra to retrieve all the washing.

I also had visions of a big tree coming down on the house just when we thought we'd sold it. Luckily when the calm of daylight came, the only damage we'd sustained was a fallen branch which had flattened part of the dog fence round Bella's pen - easily fixed.

I went off to do some grocery shopping leaving the gang to tidy up a bit and get ready for sport. Robbie had a bye this weekend so we only had to worry about Jamie getting to Bargo (half way to Canberra after all!) for his AFL and Ishbel to Summerhayes Park for her soccer.

On the way back my RFS pager went off. They were looking for a crew to help with cleaning up after the storm. I rang the Captain to say I was unavailable then Steve, my friend and the Senior Deputy Captain rang asking if I could help out. I'd had a wee think by then and asked for a few minutes to get home and sort something out. At home we arranged for Ishbel to go to her soccer coach's before the game. She had arranged the night before to go for a sleepover to Elki's after their soccer match anyway so that was taken care of already.

That having been done, Rob and I were free to join the crew and met the truck near Springwood Public School. We had two jobs to do cutting up fallen trees. The second one was a close call. The top of a very large tree had come down, very narrowly missing the conservatory of the house next door. We cut it up, nearly getting monstered by the Newfoundland dog in the garden - Robbie wants one now. He'll have to get a job so he can afford to feed it first.