To my sisters

A quote I've just found cataloguing a book :

I just want to say: I'm smiling because you're my siblings, I'm laughing because there's nothing you can do about it.

With love,

Hx

Giving Karen Curry

With the Colquhoun boy arriving on his due date, young baby Hale is on notice not to keep anyone hanging about.

Karen and I had lunch today and decided to try out the (relatively) new Indian restaurant in Springwood, something I've been wanting to do for ages as everyone I've met has enjoyed their meal there. Folklore has it that curries hurry babies so we had extra reason for giving it a go. That having failed (as far as I know thus far), he's in for a long drive down a bumpy track! And other remedies which are too rude to write about.

Booking our kitchen makeover

Ian, Ishbel and I were out and about early (comparatively) yesterday morning to have a look at some kitchen showrooms. Two we visited were closed, not good in terms of availability I thought but we have an appointment for one guy to come tomorrow evening and the other mob will ring tomorrow to make their appointment.

We attacked the huge amount of spider plant in the garden after we got back. We've barely scratched the surface of the problem and already have 4 big bin bags full of the stuff. We're still considering what to do with the agapanthus. Hugh from the Brigade who works in LandCare/bush weeding for a living hates agapanthus with a passion as it spreads so easily in to the bush but we've always kind of liked it! There are whopping great clumps of it were we are thinking of putting a veggie garden though.

We had Karen, Dan and Ben round for dinner last night before Ben goes up to his Dad for the holidays. Karen and Ben had popped in during the morning while Ian, Ish and I were out so we'd missed them. Hundreds of tacos, apple pie and lashings of ice cream later and we were all full up.

Today we are off down to town to see Cirque du Soleil - Dralion. Looking forward to it very much.

Lunch with Karen

I was up in Katoomba yesterday for work. We are getting a new internet PC booking system installed. We bought the program years ago but managed to buy it without the installation (the only people in the whole country ever to do so). My predecessor was fiddling with it but never got it done, IT have been fiddling for over a year. It wasn't until Gillian and I went to the meeting in Canberra that we found out it was easy to get the installation done for us by the company.
Not that things have gone smoothly since we decided to stump up for the installation to be done. Someone was supposed to put in a purchase order before he went on leave a month ago and didn't. Our library admin officer had to chase around to find out what was happening several times over the last month. Meanwhile the company had pencilled us in for Tuesday and Wednesday this week. On Monday they rang to say they still hadn't got the purchase order and we had until midday or Geoff the installation guy couldn't get on the plane from Adelaide. At 12:10 they rang again, giving us 10 mins to get the PO done, or send an email promising to pay. I quickly got the authorization to send the email and all was OK'd as the taxi arrived at the Adelaide end.
ANYWAY . . . as I drove in to Katoomba yesterday morning, I saw Karen's work and thought I could go and see if she could have lunch with me. So, before going to the library I popped in and we made a date.
Had fish and chips and a lovely chat. I hadn't seen Karen or Dan for a while.
She took a pic of a big Christmas tree sculpture that's up outside the Carrington Hotel for me. I'll post the pic when she sends it. The title of the sculpture really tickled me - Peas on Earth.

Walk to Faulconbridge Point

Today we went for a walk with Karen and Ben and Ishbel’s little pal, Zanny, to Faulconbridge Point. It was a warm, very windy day (first official day of the fire season and several fires around the state already) and it was hold onto your hats as we went and we had to abandon our hats as we ate our picnic lunch at the end of the 6 km approx. track. And then back again . . . Robbie striding out in front with Ben and Jamie in his wake, Karen raced up to the front leaving Ian and I to try and hurry up the stragglers – with very little effect!

Anyhow, we got some nice photos.