Long long weekend

It's a public holiday long weekend here this weekend. I also had an RDO (rostered day off, I get one every 3 weeks) on Friday to make the weekend extra long. Spent most of Friday at the hairdressers. Bit boring for Ishbel but she had to come - she'd cut her own fringe earlier in the week so the hairdo needed rescue work!

On Friday night I had my book group girls here for our October meeting. We'd been reading Enduring Love by Ian McEwan (marvellous story). We also watched the movie which stars the aesthetically pleasing Daniel Craig. While it's a good movie there were so many changes to the story from the book it got a bit frustrating. "Why did they change that?" was our constant cry. I hate it when film-makers take a perfectly good story and fiddle with it. Anyway we still had a nice evening and it really showed us how great this house is - we girls could be tucked away yapping and watching TV in the family room while the boys watched their movie in the sitting room (on 3 camping chairs, can't wait for the couch and armchairs to be ready).

Friday was very very hot and windy and we were on Standby 1 fire alert (on standby at home). Actually the bushfire season officially started on October 1. I've been travelling around with my kit in the back of the car incase of call outs so I can go from work or wherever. There was rain on Friday night and we woke to much much cooler weather on Saturday morning and it rained on and off all day.

We went down to Penrith to finalise our kitchen and appliances on Saturday morning. It's all the little choices like tile and benchtop choices that I find the most difficult. I find it hard to visualise what a large expanse of benchtop/splashback will look like from the small samples you see in the showroom. Anyway, we think we've chosen well and have a preliminary date of 11 November for the installation.

Last night we were at Bec and Steve's for their housewarming party. During the evening they got engaged, Bec having chosen to get a bracelet instead of an engagement ring.

Daylight Savings has started this morning so the time difference is now (according to Skype) GMT +1. The boys were up early to go to RFS training. Ian is going to the footy grand final today. Carolyn, who usually takes Ishbel on the first Sunday of the month so I can go to RFS and Ian can go on a bike ride, works at the stadium where the final is on so I can't go to training today. When Ishbel finally wakes up we'll have to find something girly to do to pass the time.

Hugh is bringing the boys home from training. He has a business as a bush regeneration person so he's coming to give us some advice on the bushy bit of the back garden. Robbie and Ian have been busy pulling out a whole load of bushes which they think are weeds. I'm hoping Hugh will confirm they have been pulling out weeds and help us with what should be planted for the sake of the little Red Crowned Toadlets that should be out there. Robbie has also taken care of the Spider plant that was out the back - we now have 6 or so HUGE bin bags full of the stuff.

Will try and take some pictures of the house and garden so you can see how we've progressed.