Sorry we didn't get around to Skyping you over the weekend, Fiona, as usual we were running about at breakneck speed all weekend. Will see what we can do this weekend. Did you have a nice birthday anyway?
Ishbel had arranged for her friend, Ellen, to stay over on Friday night. Ellen is one of my favourite little girls, she's incorrigibly happy, always smiling, but a bit hyper and questions, questions, questions. However, our patience was rewarded and Ishbel disappeared with Ellen to spend Saturday night at her house.
Friday night I left Ian to it with the girls and headed out to book group at Cathy's. We usually meet on the first Friday of the month but Cathy was working that night so we'd changed the day for her. We'd read (some of us anyway - Trish has the distinction of having attended nearly every meeting but never having read ANY of the books - she's doing a PhD and doesn't have time for reading) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Cathy always goes all out to create atmosphere when we meet at her house. She was dressed in lacy blouse and lacy, tiered skirt (the book is set in Spain) and had a 'Cemetary of Lost Books' on her sideboard.
We always have a lot of fun and Friday night was no exception. Apart from hearing how Heather had turned the tables on an obscene phone caller, Sharon told us she had an annoying song in her head. The cure for that is to sing Jesus Loves Me - it puts the annoying song out of your head but doesn't stay itself. How does that go? asked someone. So I started to sing it and the others joined in. Sudden silence from Cathy's boys in the next room! We really lost it when Cathy reached in behind the Cemetary of Lost Books and pulled out a picture of Mary and Jesus (or Mary and Joseph) which, at the flick of a switch, had flashing lights going! Cathy's mum had got it from the local convent when it closed down and thought Cathy would like it!
I was up and out early with Jamie on Saturday morning. Jamie was doing a two day Senior First Aid Course up at Firecom in Katoomba. Luckily our friend, Marie, and her son, Rob's mate Leigh, were also doing the course so we were able to arrange for Jamie to go up with them. Rob and I did the same course about this time last year.
During Saturday afternoon (Valentine's Day) I rang Sharon and Janet and Steven to see if they wanted to come round for tea. It's been raining and cold for AGES now and I thought we could do cold weather comfort food like thick soup and steamed pudding. Nobody was free, which was a bit of a fizzer but not long after that I took a call from Cathy Humphries. Cathy (separated, single woman now) offered for the children to come to her for the evening, letting us do something for Valentines. I looked up the showing times for the Ricky Gervais film, Ghost Town, and tried to book us into my favourite restaurant in Katoomba but it was fully booked and I thought it would be a similar story all over so thought we'd just take pot luck after the movie. I didn;t give Robbie any choice, just told him we'd be dropping him off to spend the evening with Cameron and Brendan and Jamie would be able to walk over there from Marie's place when they got back from Katoomba.
The film was great fun. If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend it. I laughed out loud all the way through and there's a shock at the end where I shouted out loud too. After the movie we crawled through the main street in Katoomba looking for a not overcrowded restaurant or cafe. But it was chucking it down and there was no parking so we then trawled the Mall in Leura. Again no parking. We thought we'd have to just wait until we were back in Faulconbridge or Springwood. We tried Wentworth Falls on our way past. There just happened to be a parking space outside the Chinese restaurant so we thought we'd give it a go - and had one of the nicest Chinese meals I've ever had. And it was a very reasonable price.
Meanwhile the boys had been playing board games with Cameron and Brendan and had also had a good night. We had a cuppa and a serving of sticky date pudding (my favourite) with Cathy before taking them home.
And up early on Sunday again to take Jamie to Marie's. Not me this time - Ian. I stayed in bed trying to finish the book for my other book group. I didn't finish the book but that wasn't too much of a problem, I'd read it a couple of years ago and I got pretty close anyway.
I went to see Xavier. He was awake and playing happily on the floor plaything. When he started to grizzle I picked him up for a play, tired him out and made him grizzle so he was sent to bed. By then it was time to head up through driving rain to Katoomba for book group and back again through cats and dogs stuff afterwards.
Ishbel had arranged for her friend, Ellen, to stay over on Friday night. Ellen is one of my favourite little girls, she's incorrigibly happy, always smiling, but a bit hyper and questions, questions, questions. However, our patience was rewarded and Ishbel disappeared with Ellen to spend Saturday night at her house.
Friday night I left Ian to it with the girls and headed out to book group at Cathy's. We usually meet on the first Friday of the month but Cathy was working that night so we'd changed the day for her. We'd read (some of us anyway - Trish has the distinction of having attended nearly every meeting but never having read ANY of the books - she's doing a PhD and doesn't have time for reading) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Cathy always goes all out to create atmosphere when we meet at her house. She was dressed in lacy blouse and lacy, tiered skirt (the book is set in Spain) and had a 'Cemetary of Lost Books' on her sideboard.
We always have a lot of fun and Friday night was no exception. Apart from hearing how Heather had turned the tables on an obscene phone caller, Sharon told us she had an annoying song in her head. The cure for that is to sing Jesus Loves Me - it puts the annoying song out of your head but doesn't stay itself. How does that go? asked someone. So I started to sing it and the others joined in. Sudden silence from Cathy's boys in the next room! We really lost it when Cathy reached in behind the Cemetary of Lost Books and pulled out a picture of Mary and Jesus (or Mary and Joseph) which, at the flick of a switch, had flashing lights going! Cathy's mum had got it from the local convent when it closed down and thought Cathy would like it!
I was up and out early with Jamie on Saturday morning. Jamie was doing a two day Senior First Aid Course up at Firecom in Katoomba. Luckily our friend, Marie, and her son, Rob's mate Leigh, were also doing the course so we were able to arrange for Jamie to go up with them. Rob and I did the same course about this time last year.
During Saturday afternoon (Valentine's Day) I rang Sharon and Janet and Steven to see if they wanted to come round for tea. It's been raining and cold for AGES now and I thought we could do cold weather comfort food like thick soup and steamed pudding. Nobody was free, which was a bit of a fizzer but not long after that I took a call from Cathy Humphries. Cathy (separated, single woman now) offered for the children to come to her for the evening, letting us do something for Valentines. I looked up the showing times for the Ricky Gervais film, Ghost Town, and tried to book us into my favourite restaurant in Katoomba but it was fully booked and I thought it would be a similar story all over so thought we'd just take pot luck after the movie. I didn;t give Robbie any choice, just told him we'd be dropping him off to spend the evening with Cameron and Brendan and Jamie would be able to walk over there from Marie's place when they got back from Katoomba.
The film was great fun. If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend it. I laughed out loud all the way through and there's a shock at the end where I shouted out loud too. After the movie we crawled through the main street in Katoomba looking for a not overcrowded restaurant or cafe. But it was chucking it down and there was no parking so we then trawled the Mall in Leura. Again no parking. We thought we'd have to just wait until we were back in Faulconbridge or Springwood. We tried Wentworth Falls on our way past. There just happened to be a parking space outside the Chinese restaurant so we thought we'd give it a go - and had one of the nicest Chinese meals I've ever had. And it was a very reasonable price.
Meanwhile the boys had been playing board games with Cameron and Brendan and had also had a good night. We had a cuppa and a serving of sticky date pudding (my favourite) with Cathy before taking them home.
And up early on Sunday again to take Jamie to Marie's. Not me this time - Ian. I stayed in bed trying to finish the book for my other book group. I didn't finish the book but that wasn't too much of a problem, I'd read it a couple of years ago and I got pretty close anyway.
I went to see Xavier. He was awake and playing happily on the floor plaything. When he started to grizzle I picked him up for a play, tired him out and made him grizzle so he was sent to bed. By then it was time to head up through driving rain to Katoomba for book group and back again through cats and dogs stuff afterwards.
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