A White Christmas?

The festive season is well and truly here. Our tree is up decorated with lights, balls, tinsel and some beautifully hand made angels from Ella. The Santa sacks are eagerly hanging next to the tree waiting to be filled. And perhaps a white christmas is on the cards?

Today in Canberra it was freezing - I had to wear winter cycling clothes to work and my hands froze! Dave and Sandra returned from an overnight visit to Guthega after having to take a new oven up and meeting the electrician to install it. According to them, it was winter up there too. In fact over night it snowed 10cm!! Packing lists are going to be rewritten with bathers crossed off and gloves and beanies added!

With Dave and Sandra staying overnight, we had Fuji come over. As we discovered, Fuji really likes Rosie and Molly a lot (unlike Pippa who doesn't even notice them half the time). Fuji would be sniffing after the chickens and generally getting all excited wanting to chase them. However as we had put in Andy's newly made gate and reorganised the chicken coop, we weren't too concerned about Fuji. Off to work we went.

Slightly forgot about Rosie the escape artist though. Hence when I arrived home, I noticed the coop minus the chickens and with holes dug under the gate. My attention went straight to Fuji and I did feel a little queasy. My worst fears disappeared when I scanned the background for any sign of Molly or Rosie and saw movement near the apricot tree. On closer inspection, the girls were enjoying themselves scratching in the leaf litter for bugs. A big sigh of relief!

On the work front today was beginning to go crazy - people not showing up (yah), people showing up without their referral and of course urgent and more urgent scans requested into an already full list. Just can't wait to see what happens for the rest of the week. This year will be the first year I am not working between christmas and new year since I starting work at CIG 6 years ago and probably after working full time this week I'll need the R & R.

Gone

Thursday saw the tree crew return with a bigger truck to take away the remaining stump. Technique of removal changed from lifting to using a winch system to pull the stump onto the tray of the truck. Great free entertainment for Ella for 30mins! Last night while Andy was bathing and putting the girls to bed I was busy shovelling soil. The railway sleepers that edged the front garden had been moved by the roots of the tree and needed to be firstly uncovered from beneath the soil and secondly arranged back into place. A few hours of sweat and toil saw the front garden begin to look normal again....now just to plant another gum tree!

It was Only a Matter of Time...

before I drove into the garage and forgot the bike was on the roof !! I'll set the scene for you - it's 8pm we're on our way home from Andy's work xmas BBQ that was held at Black Mountain Peninsula. Beautiful evening for the BBQ and with lots of playground equipment the girls had heaps of fun too. As it was way past their bedtime we had changed them into their pj's before the drive home, hoping (and driving very slowly) that they would both fall asleep on the way. Ella was pretty much asleep and Katy's eyes were drooping as we turned into the driveway. Perfect timing.

Andy got out and opened the garage door before heading off to open up the house. I began to drive (thankfully fairly slowly) into the garage when there was this enormous bang. Then that sinking realisation I'd forgotten about the bike! Ella woke up instantly - what was that noise mummy?? Katy's eyes popped open too. Damn, damn, triple damn. So after putting both girls to bed (Ella took another 45 mins to drift off) we inspected the damaged.

Bike - ok (a real pity as I'm sure Andy would love a new one!). Roof rack - skewed but ok. Car - a few dents mainly where the roof rack hugs the door frames. Drivers door was a little sticky to close but Andy managed to fix that with a bit of hammering. Garage door - bent but with a bit of force could close. Let's just hope that's the last time that it happens.

Rosie & Molly Have Arrived

We have two new additions to the family! On Sunday morning while I was having fun with Stacey and Edith selling stuff ($170 to be exact) at the Jammo trash 'n' treasure our neighbour passed the chickens over the fence. Rosie (Ella's chicken) and Molly (Katy's chicken) settled nicely into their makeshift coop. Andy soon discover some adjustments were necessary after Rosie escaped twice! Pippa doesn't seem too interested in the chickens when they are scratching around in the garden but we wouldn't leave her on her own with them loose. The move hasn't upset their laying capabilities as we have collected 6 eggs. I think I can cross eggs off the shopping list from now on. Apologies for the lack of photos but the camera lens is jammed (again)...and it's only 3 months old. Hopefully it will be covered by the warranty.

New Table

We're looking forward to being able to entertain family and friends with a little more room both around and on our new spotted gum table!!

Holiday Wrap Up

The weekend at the beach house was busy. We visited Point Perpendicular (which viewed from behind the fence was quite un-perpendicular) and had a dip at Honeymoon Bay.

We swam more, collected shells and played on the beach.

We ate ice cream, had fish 'n' chips and watched the sunset.

Then there was inside stuff too - reading books, colouring in as well as our favourite of collecting, cutting and sticking (that is finding flowers, leaves ect, cutting them to size and then taping them onto paper with sticky tape!

All in all a fantastic and exhausting holiday!

Clean Up Begins Finally!

Goodbye beautiful tree! This is the only photo of our tree I could find and is taken from down the street prior to buying our house.

Our tree which has been blocking Aston Cres since it fell over in a small but furious storm on Saturday evening, has now been mostly removed. Yesterday while we were at work the trunk was stripped bare of its branches which were mulched on site. Two of our neighbours who happened to be at home at the time, both scored 8 cubic meters of mulch each!!

Today saw the tree crew return to remove the trunk. The girls thought it was great eating their fruit toast while watching the guys in action - chainsawing and lifting. The stump proved to be a sticking point. The crew tried to use the crane to remove the stump from the ground without any luck as it was a little too heavy. So it's back upright and mostly in the hole. Not sure what the next step is - perhaps a bigger crane?

Carnage in Cook!

We interrupt our series of holiday reminisces to bring you details of the Carnage in Cook.

We had invited Susie, Patrick & kids over to dinner , and were just sitting down to eat when a somewhat ferocious storm struck. We were eating in the dining room at the time, looking out the back window at the storm pull branches of our back neighbours eucalypt. Sometime after we'd finished eating the kids returned to say that there was a lady at the door, who turned out to be our neighbour Lil. The conversation went as follows:
Lil: "Are you all OK?"
Me: "Yes, we're fine, thanks."
Lil: "Are there any trees down at the back."
Me: "Not that I've noticed, why do you ask?"
Lil: "You mean, you don't know about your tree out the front?"

That was when I peaked around the corner to see our huge eucaypt sprawled across the road. And when I say huge, I mean absolutely gigantic. The trunk is about 1.2m in diameter, and the tree stretched right across the road to within a few cm of the neighbours house. All the neighbours were out there already, and we spent a few minutes circumnavigating the tree to ensure that there wasn't too much damage. It missed the hedge at #7 by cms, blocked the driveway at #6 (he's away for the weekend) but partially smashed the garden at #4. All in all we considered ourselves pretty lucky (none more so than the chinese guy walking down the street who was about 20m away when it fell).

It provided somewhat of a focal point, initially for the street, but later on for most of the suburb as word got around. It seemed the SES/RFS/Fire Brigade were all telling people that the biggest tree to come down was ours, and everyone came for a gawk.

At about 8-ish the Fire Brigade came to chop it into bits so they could clear the road, but after an hour or 2 they realised it wasn't going to happen tonight. So they put tape across the road so nobody would drive into it and left us to our own devices.

To be honest, I was kind of proud of having such a large tree in our yard, and will definitely miss it. But there are always positives, such as:

• It didn't fall on our house, or our neighbours house;
• It didn't even fall on Susie's car;
• We don't have to pay to remove it, because it was in front of the water meter (At least it was when it was planted, but it was so massive that I think a fraction of it might have been behind the water meter by the time it died);
• We got to chat to all our neighbours;
• We might get some nice slices of timber to make some back garden seats (but I think the solid, 1m cubed timber coffee table I had promised Rob may be impractical); and
• While chatting to our back-fence neighbours (the ones with chickens), it transpired that they are about to go on a posting, and are looking to give away their chickens - clearly divine intervention, since Nat has been looking to buy chickens for months .....
  

Currarong Pt. 4

The remainder of our holiday week was divided between a smorgasbord of various beaches, bike rides and activities. Thursday found us at the famous Greenpatch beach in Jervis Bay. Katy spent the entire morning crying her little heart out and, when we finally got her home, discovered that she had a temperature.

Friday dawned cloudy, and the best we could manage was a bushwalk & bike trip down to the local shipwreck. Katy spent the day recovering and by evening was as good as new. All ready for Aoife's Dad to arrive for the weekend...

Today

While Ella was busy at school drawing fabulous pictures (see below), I had my own personal assistant in the kitchen. We made a pavlova for a BBQ (which subsequently got cancelled due to the rain). As you can see, Katy is clearly taking after the Hogg side of the family - licking the cream off the beater (after Nana and Aunty Cathy) while carrying a box of Blackcurrant tea (after her dad) to brew after sweets!!

Currarong Pt 3

It was great to have Aoife and Cath arrive late Tuesday night. Sure we had our fair share of tantrums and sharing issues however for the majority of the time it fantastic to watch Ella and Aoife interacting and playing together.

Wednesday dawned early for some of us (namely Katy and myself). As I slowly woke up while warming up Katy's milk, I gazed out at the still ocean only to see two blackish things coming out of the water. Now they were a fair way out and I don't have the best eyesight so I assumed they was dolphins. Anyway I watched these two 'dolphins' surface every so often while Katy was drinking away. Some giggling from the girls bedroom announced they were awake so I called to them to come look at the 'dolphins'. Cath came out too and with eyes straining I managed to point out the 'dolphins' which Cath informed me were actually whales!!

We took advance of the beautiful weather and wandered down past the rockpool to the gorgeous beach.

Ella and Aoife insisted on wearing their googles to look for fish :) I don't think either of them put their head under the water as they spent most of the time chasing the waves. Meanwhile Katy wasn't too keen on the noise of the waves so we went further up the beach to where a little creek ran into the ocean. This area turned out to be perfect for Katy who loved splashing and digging in the sand.

After spending the entire morning at the beach, we decided in the afternoon to ride down to the local shop for ice cream and a play at the park.