April is here! Summer is officially over in the Southern Hemisphere but that's not to say that the sunshine has disappeared. We are still enjoying the mid 20C temperatures which is not boding well for Saturday netball - bring back the indoor air conditioned courts any day! Needless to say, we are still enjoying roaming around in our flip flops and shorts although the jeans are beginning to make the occasional outing from the back of the wardrobe....a sign Winter will be here shortly! Brr, 17C, not looking forward to it. Ha.
So I'm back, blogging, it's been another 4 weeks since my last post. We have had an interesting April so far, action packed as always with sporting activities, and we have had a couple of fun weekends too. For Easter, we flew to Sydney to catch up with Alan and Kelly and baby Adam. We arrived around 10pm on the Thursday night and slept on the sofa (Adam has stolen the spare room - how dare he). A rather tired Kelly was already tucked up in bed and we were warned that we would likely be woken up by the little one during the night. And we were, but it really wasn't so bad - I guess when you are not the parents, you can roll over and go back to sleep pretty quick!! Next morning, we had a pretty lazy start to the day before setting off for Smith's Lake, which is 3 hours drive north of Sydney. Well normally, but not on Good Friday it would appear! Off we set about 10am-ish, Alan driving, Bob squished into the front seat (baby seat taking up space behind him), Adam in his baby seat, Kelly in the middle and myself behind Alan. All packed with baby food in the car, and with four bags, pram, travel cot, playmat, about 1kg of chilli and several beers (can't buy alcohol on Good Friday here) in the boot, we were on the road. 1.5 hours later, we had moved about 10km. Seriously. It was mental! Never ever moving to Sydney, the traffic here is like nothing you've ever seen before. There is only so long Eye Spy can continue for and to be fair, Adam was pretty content for 5 hours of the journey before he started to grumble. He wasn't alone!! At least he had some baby food to cheer him up, we just had to settle for Alan's mashed up 90's rave music. Torture.
Eventually we arrived at our lakeside house at about 4pm. The house was beautiful, newly refurbished with it's own path to the lake about 200m away. The sun was shining and we were glad to sit out on the deck with a beer in hand. Hurrah! Holidays. Smith's lake itself is used for watersports, mainly kayaking and waterskiing. There were a few people fishing there too. We decided on some kayaking for the following day while the little one was having some nap time. Kelly was to be official photographer, that was if we managed to kayak from the boathouse to our house without a) getting lost or b) sinking........ Dinner was some of the chilli over nachos with cheese. Delicious. Only 800g of chilli to go!
Saturday morning, Bob and I stole the car and zoomed up to the shops for a quick cuppa and some meat for the BBQ that evening. The cafe was pretty packed with holidayers - this is obviously holiday home region and we were rather jealous! Lovely big homes with boats and surf boards galore, swimming pools in the back garden, beach towels hanging on the decks. We could get used to this.....I wonder how much one would cost?!
Back to the house to collect Alan before heading to the boat house for our kayaks. Alan, being the small man that he is, had no trouble leaping into his kayak like a baby gazelle. Bob and I on the other hand were like baby giraffes, with little room to stretch out our long legs. Alan whizzed off at high speed, shouting that he knew how to get to our house "it was just round the corner" while Bob managed to paddle for approximately 45 seconds before cramping up at his hip flexors. Definitely two extremes of athleticism here. I stuck with my man at the back, trying to think up a zillion positions for him to get into to make the whole experience a little more enjoyable. I was unsuccesful and after 5 minutes, Bob had had enough. Back to shore for him, while I tried to catch up with the small person. After half an hour, we made it to Kelly and Adam, who snapped away getting evidence for Bob before handing us a beer each and wishing us luck for our return journey against the wind. No problemo, apart from the fact that our photo shoot and beer drinking left us approximately 16 minutes to get back to the boat house. Being the competitive types we are, Alan and I decided to race each other for most of the journey, shouting time out every 3-4 minutes for a quick swig of beer to give us another boost. It was a tight contest towards the final stages (and a bit of illegal splashing from the small person) but Alan came out victorious in the end. Bob was there to help us out, a little soggier than planned, and home we went.
Kelly and Adam were wide awake at this point and eager to get out and about. On went the swimmers and we headed to Elizabeth Beach for some sand and sea. Clear blue sky, a nice 30C, perfect for a splash in the sea. And what a splash it was. The waves weren't exactly gentle and both Bob and I got wiped out trying to 'ride' the waves.....hmmm, won't be trying that again in a hurray!
Now, you might have thought that for dinner, we would be tucking into the remaining 800g of chilli we had brought with us. The boys had other ideas though and steak with macaroni cheese (?) was on the agenda. It was pretty yummy, if a bit of a strange concoction. An evening of cards began, with Bob and Kelly in one team and myself and Alan on the other. Also known as two rather patient personalities against two rather determined individuals!! Argh. Beaten rather convincingly at the first game and we huffed and puffed about it for the rest of the night. We would get our own back.....poker the following evening. Mwahahaha
Sunday, Alan decided to take advantage of a rather sleepy Bob by taking him tea and toast in bed. Now, you might be thinking what a nice thing to do, but obviously Alan had mischief in sight. Anyone who knows Bob knows that he absolutely HATES crumbs in the bed. HATES IT. He's not one for losing his temper but eat toast or crisps in bed and he'll throw a tanty. Alan takes Bob his toast, only for Kelly and I to hear about 15 seconds later a rather sleepy but irritated roar from Bob before Alan leaps from his room. First practical joke down. Plenty more to come......
With another sunny day on the agenda, we decided to head to Seals Rocks, another beach recommended to us by the owners of our house. We found a base for all our stuff and Bob and I took a wander to the end of the beach. On getting to the end of the beach, we turned around to come back, to see Alan running along the beach. He had decided to run to see if he could catch us before we reached then end but had failed. What was quite funny, was the shampoo that Bob had squirted into his boardies before we left the house was foaming up everywhere. Hilarious. No matter how much he washed it off, it would be soapy again. Bob was rather pleased that he had gotten his own back on the crumb fiasco. Score: 1:1.
After a couple of hours at the beach and a new clutch required after getting stuck in muddy grass, we headed back home before our big lawn bowls match, where myself and Alan were determined to beat Bob and Kelly. Adam was quite content to crawl on the bowling green but didn't appear at all interested in his own toys, just interested in drooling over the bowls. Nice touch Adam. During the game of bowls, we were glad that Adam's dinner time was due as this meant Kelly was distracted and her head wasn't in the game. Having said that, due to the nature of the game and the fact we all have to take turns, we were also all taking turns at feeding the baby. Easier said than done! I adopted the 'squirt and catch' technique which seemed to be working quite well, although I have to say, the baby looked like he'd been in a fight with his dinner rather than eating it. Ah well, he was having fun. And Alan and I were victorious at the end of the game! Yes! We didn't hang around for the 'discotheque' at 6pm and decided to head home for, you guessed it, a chilli and cheese feast and a spot of Still Game on DVD. Oh, and poker. Despite Bob cheating, Alan still beat him. Hmmm! Time for bed, only for Bob to discover some pieces of toast under his pillow. AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH
The next morning, we decided to get up early and set off back to Sydney early doors to beat the traffic. We were successful! On arriving back to Neutral Bay and unloading the car, only then did Alan discover the soggy pieces of toast in his boardies pocket. Honestly, I don't think the boys will ever tire of playing jokes. Alan had the last laugh though - once Bob and I had said our goodbyes and headed off to the airport, touched down in Melbourne and driven home to Drouin arriving about 8.30pm on the Monday night, there was still a practical joke to be discovered. A practical joke that has been continued from New Years Eve 2009. The popcorn was back and it was taking up all the little nooks and crannies in Bob's suitcase. AAARRRGGGHHH. He was still picking pieces of popcorn from his trainers days later. Alan should beware.......
So that was our Easter. Since then, I have had two golf lessons with a group of mates which have ended with us having a few apres-golf glasses of wine and buying a couple of raffle tickets. Chelsea actually won a set of golf clubs last week! Gary and Chelsea are now neck and neck with Bob and I for major prizes - us, the 32" plasma TV, golf clubs and a $1000 travel voucher and for Gary and Chelsea, a lawnmower, BBQ and golf clubs. Joe and Lauren have won a breakfast voucher and a box of Crown lager. They haven't quite hit the big time yet but it will come!!! As for the golf lessons, if I concentrate hard, I can hit a 7 iron about 100 yards, in a relatively straight line. Not consistently though, oh no, but I'm determined to get the hang of it!
Netball has been going well. Since our loss to Poowong in Round 1, we have beaten Bunyip 67-42 (they were 4th last year and we were 5th) and we beat Koo Wee Rup 78-32 yesterday who are always around mid table. We have been making changes this season and the changes seem to be working! Coaching is a challenge but I'm enjoying it.
Bob and I are both playing badminton now - Bob is in the penant 'A' grade team and I'm in Section 1 ('B' grade), both on Thursday nights. I had my first game against Ellinbank last Thursday and we just scraped a win. There are two guys and two girls in the team. Girls play a level doubles, guys play a level doubles, then each girl plays a mixed with each guy. 6 games in total. It was a draw 3-3 but we came out on top with the most amount of points. One of the mixed matches, we lost 21-20, 21-20, disappointing! All good fun though and not too serious which is good. In a rather old fashioned style, we had a cup of tea and some cakes for afterwards. It should be a good season! Bob had a 'bye' last week so he has his first game this Thursday.
Our other news is that we had a night out in the city last Saturday night for the Melbourne Comedy Festival with our friends, English Joe and Kiwi Lauren. We had booked an apartment in Fitzroy and met up there for a pre-comedy glass of vino about 5.30pm before getting a taxi into the CBD. First stop, Dave Gorman at 7pm in the Forum theatre. In true student style, the two glasses of wine were poured into plastic pint glasses for Lauren and I. Classy! The show was brilliant and we came out buzzing. We had an hour to kill before our next show so we popped into a bar for some bread and dips and a cocktail before we headed to the town hall to see Stephen k Amos. Picture the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh at festival time and that's pretty much what it was like. He was funny enough but we were all a little disappointed with it. Bob and I had seen him before and he doesn't seem to change his material much. Shame. Ah well, back to Fitzroy for some chinese food before heading into the attic of a funky little place called the Black Pearl for a nightcap. Hometime at 1am we must be getting old?!?! A good time was had by all.
So that sums up our April so far! Nothing hugely exciting on the cards for May other than a possible camping trip and a sort-of-wedding. Will explain more later! Love to all, speak soon, Mr and Mrs B xxxx
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