Happy New Years to you!

Happy 2006!

So far the silly season has been quite amusing indeed!

I had the entire ‘tribe’ for Christmas lunch at my “new place” which just went to highlight the inadequacies of the kitchen … lack of bench and preparation areas, storage areas etc.
Will put that all on the list for the Reno rescue.
At least the fridge held up!
Before lunch

After lunch


We had lunch outside, as the forecast was meant to be pleasant, well, we made it through entrée and mains but had to move on inside for desert. The light rain convinced us!
Mental note, add pergola roofing to list …

Getting "aquainted" with lunch!
And of course there were the silly's to be had, as with Christmas, and the wearing of funny hats!


I got to play ‘Father Christmas’ this year, and I had Jasmine as my helper elf, she did a sterling job distributing to all.
Kath and Mike bought along the afternoon entertainment in the form of a ‘build-your-own’ Ginger bread house … which turned out nothing like the picture on the box. After an initial avalanche of the roof, we got it to stick and then proceeded to ‘decorate’ with the delicious (NOT) lollies provided. The jelly beans were the only passable sugary treat. Even the Ginger bread wasn’t that tasty. Maybe the kit was a ‘looks’ only thing. How silly of us to think we could eat it!
What is was 'meant' to look like

The construction phase ...

What it 'actually' looked like


The rest of the day was spent lazing on the couch and generally drinking more bubbly. I certainly didn’t need any tea that night!

The next few days were the beginning of Reno rescue, with Dad ready and raring for action; we had a few trips to bunnings, and got stuck into the laundry with some shelf and bench construction. We even got a wood table saw out of it. A nifty GMC jobbie. Better watch out for the pinkies with this one! Yeowch!

Thursday saw me flit off to Melbourne to see Rob, who had attempted to grow a "Santa Beard" as he put it, and his family.

Exhibit A ... the Santa beard

Which turned into the Porn Mow .... when he was shaving it off, apparantly it was too itchy and hot!

Thank goodness it's gone, it was quite scary! Not to mention a wee bit prickley!

We went via the ACA breeders to check out if they had any Cavoodles in stock, alas we were disappointed. Then a big drive down to Gippsland to stay with the older brother … or the absent minded professor. It was all very amusing. After a few days of lazing about in the 40 degree heat, and searching fruitlessly for a Cavoodle, they breed them down that area, but absolutely no-one had any or they had ‘just sold the last one’ Oh well, we are just not meant to get one just yet, but we did find out that Qantas will fly it back free of charge if you don’t have any luggage, or if the total does not exceed 32Kg.
We just need a pet carrier, and you can allegedly hire them, or they are not that much to buy.
We went back to Melb on New years eve, in the 42 degree heat… bloody hell. Rob tells me it gets cold and take jeans etc. I am so glad I threw in a T-shirt and zip off cargo pants.
We went to a friend of his for drinks, after dinner at a delicious Indian place. Then we caught the tram into town and watched the fireworks from the Roof of the old “Royal Mail” or “Maitz” as it’s called now. Not too bad, and then we managed to get a cab back to Essendon, I drove us back home to Rob’s Sister’s place.
It also happened to be our 3rd month anniversary on the first.
Shop-a-rama entailed over the next few days with visits to Bridge road and the sorts. We also happened to squeeze in Narnia. Which I thought was bloody excellent!
We got a bit carried away with the shops and I nearly missed my flight … I ran through the doors and through the metal detector jobbie, and heard the boarding call … good thing I didn’t have any bloody luggage!

OK, so now it’s back to the grind stone, busy already, seems we finally made our ‘3’ here at work, It all started with 2 cardiac emergencies in the last week. We had our 3rd yesterday, thank god I was away! I am not to sure I would have been on the ball too much yesterday!