What a wonderful world

Ah, sorry - I've been taken away by study.... a CPA Tax module which I thought I'd do for interest's sake.  Hmm.... water torture (as in drips), springs to mind.  Anyway, the exam was on Thursday and I am now free to write blogs and write on Facebook....

But this will be a short one as I have so much to catch up on that only a few sentences are allowed tonight, (I'm also writing this on Mike's Mac and in true Mac fashion, it is misbehaving for me - how did this non-logical piece of technology become so popular????).

Cupcake update: cupcakes are doing well and progressing in designs and markets.  We're a fixture at the monthly Tooradin Market and I have a few regular customers.  Mike has now entered the muffin making side of the business and does the chocolate and apple ones for me each month - ok, they're pretty darn good!

Fraser update: I think we can now say he's lavatory trained now :-) a surprising lack of drama after only one day of constantly wet clothes.  He's also asked his first "where, what, how, why" question and it was "Where does Vegemite come from mummy?"  Lucky daddy wasn't here to answer that one.  The Marmite vs Vegemite contest here backfired spectacularly on Mike.  He was calling Marmite "Proper Mite" and Vegemite "Tasteless Mite" - but Fraser a) prefers Vegemite and b) now calls Vegemite "Tasty Mite!!"  Ha, I won!

Cow update: Mike is working 3 days a week on a 750 cow dairy farm which milks 50 cows at once on a rotary dairy.  He is also working with a mad Irish couple who are actually engineers escaping un-employment in Ireland and a Spaniard chasing, er, not sure, girls??  Apparently all the "workers" on the farm have university degrees - which are not in agriculture.  Required: Discuss The Impact University Education Has On Your Future Career.

Tomorrow we're off to CERES (look it up - old quarry became rubbish tip, now eco park in heart of Melbourne), with my aunt and then Tuesday which is Melbourne Cup Day (and a holiday here!) we're spending with Juliet and the girls and we're having a Race Day party in Hampton.

Winter layers

I was promised Melbourne's weather wasn't as bad as London's... well there's no snow, but by heck it rains!!  However, it's not as cold and so we've actually been able to do quite abit of gardening.... the pond area has now been filled in and "Jurassic Park" behind the shed is no longer.... I wonder where the mozzies are going to live this summer.

We went to the beach again last weekend - Point Leo this time (touted as the "closest surf beach to Melbourne") and almost had the space to ourselves.  The dogs had a ball chasing seagulls, tramping on our castle and pretending to swim...  Fraser is improving his sand castle building skills and I'm sure he'll be an entrant in this year's castle building competitions for the under 3's....  We finished the day off with a picnic - not such a winning idea when it's a bit windy and the food ends up with a significant crunch to it.

I'm continuing to sell cupcakes at Tooradin market and did another one this weekend.  Enclosed a pic of Fraser and I in "cupcakes at markets" kit....

My last blog was just before a terribly sad day - on 14th June, Mike's friend Rupert died suddenly of a heart attack.  They shared a flat together at university and as he'd emigrated to Australia with his family 5 years ago, Mike and Rupert were having a fantastic time rekindling an old friendship and sharing Australian experiences.  He was a wonderful, inspiring, intelligent, fun loving man with a gorgeous family who are now trying to come to terms with life without him.  Rupert's passing been such a shock and so terribly sad that we've not turned our minds to much else recently.  We've seen Juliet and the girls quite abit which has been lovely - they're trying to laugh along with little things of life and we all remember Rupert when we're together.  But they have such a long way to go on their journey - I hope we can shine a little light on their dark path.

A tiny silver lining in the dark cloud was that it was lovely, despite the circumstances to see Rich when he came over for Rupert's memorial service and that we've made some new friends whose friendship with Rupert we all have in common.  Rupert will live on in our hearts, memories and conversations.

Holes in the garden

Our puppies (enjoy the cute word as we won't be able to sensibly use it for much longer), have decided that our absence in the garden (due on our part to the cold wet weather), means that they need to take over gardening duties.

Tessa in particular has dug some magnificent holes for new plants in the garden beds, although so deep perhaps it is treasure she's actually digging for.  There is obviously quite a hoarde under the lawn as it's had a good going over too.  As I write this I should really go and shout at them because x is obviously marking the spot under a lovely little eucalypt tree as they're madly digging and barking at something at the bottom of the giant hole they've excavated!

Ah and Fraser's just them in! Marvellous chaos.

Mike took Tessa to the farm the last week and she loved it (although one would hope that she would answer the calling of her ancestors).  She was very well behaved, following the cows at a respectful distance, hanging on for dear life on the motorbike and splasing about in the mud.  Both master and hound returned home very happy.

The cupcakes have just become a definite regular fixture in our lives as I've taken a "permanent stall" at the Tooradin market down the road (the 3rd Sunday in every month so do tell your friends!)  I tried another market at Bittern to the south of here, with limited success, so decided to return to the original posting which was somewhat more reliable.  Having 60 cupcakes left over at the end of the market is depressing and is not slimming on the hips. 

There was enough sun on Friday for a sojourn to the beach.  Fraser, the dogs and I built sandcastles and ran up and down the beach.  The puppies then decided to go for a swim and despite all threats to the contrary, Fraser decided to join them.... it was a wet ride home!

My new job is great - challenging, but without stress at the moment.  The people are lovely, the product is interesting and seems to have great scope for further deveopment and sales.  The owners are passionate about their product and are just happy to let me get on with my work.  I feel rather fortunate!

Fraser turns 2.

We decided to have a 2nd birthday party for Fraser.  After we'd invited about 30 children, I read that it is recommended that at that age you invite 8 as a maximum, and for about 1 1/2 hours.... we'd invited them for 3!!  So it was with a bit of trepidation that Saturday morning arrived....

 

But it went very well on Saturday, lots of happy children (no tears at all!!!) and I think besides Fraser, the puppies mum and Geoff brought over stole the show!  The weather was fabulous - almost hot and so we were able to save the carpet, although not enjoy the freshly painted play room, and have the party outside.  Mike did his usual brilliant job organising party things, great loot bags, lots of streamers and balloons.  It felt very festival and the children did lots of running around shouting which is always a good sign.

 

 

 

Mike went back to the cow shed all day yesterday and is there again today, although today he's having Tractor 102 (moved on from Tractor 101) lessons and is feeding out the hay by himself.....so hopefully that's a bit more exciting than watching cow teats pass by for a few hours.

 

Down on the beach....at Frankston!!

Quelle horreur!  Fraser and I went to the beach at Frankston yesterday morning whilst Mike did a few errands around town.  Rowena doesn't recommend Frankston as a place to visit, so we've been avoiding it, thinking the beach would be full of people with tattoos and too small bikinis with guns in their pants.  But we found none of those, just a huge, sandy beach in pristine condition with a few nice people walking dogs.  So we built a sandcastle, dug a moat, jumped on our creation and then paddled in the sea, getting very wet and generally having a great time.

We spent the afternoon gardening, pulling up ivy and a horrible plant against the fence which annoyed me everytime I looked at it.  Since it's no longer there, now the gap where it was is annoying me as I am yet to purchase the gap filling plant....

Fraser has decided that eating is extremely boring and interferes with his games.  So I've given up wrestling with him to get him to eat and so tonight he ate about 4 spoonfuls of spag bol and about 150mls of milk and that's it!  I hope he doesn't fade away :-D  His favourite game is "rackets" which involves hitting a ball to you and you back to him.  He's getting quite good at hitting it and yesterday whipped a ball past me at a pace which made me glad his aim is still somewhat wayward.

Cars are also the new thing and they're all lined up and whizzed around the kitchen floor for a good part of the time I'm in there cooking dinner.  Talking of cooking we've also been making muffins together which he LOVES doing.  I've also had him up on the stool when I'm using the beaters and his eyes nearly pop out watching it go around and around with no place to go.

Mike's also embarking on new things.  Last week he purchased a home brew kit and we now have a large drum of yeasty stuff popping away on the kitchen bench - I am told it will be bottled in a few days and that it smells great.  I am sure that it just a ploy to get into my kitchen!!  Mike's out at his "Album Club" tonight with Rupert - they're listening to one of Led Zepplin's albums.  Mike's hoping that he will be convinced of the beauty of LZ as he's not been converted in during his preparation time.... despite owning ALL their albums!!
Mike's just called and said that Rupert has written a whole blog on his construction of a Tandoori oven!  Cool, we're doing a pizza oven next..... watch this space.

Working Girl

Ah, it's back to the daily commute.  But wait!  No it's not quite.....  Last Tuesday I started my new job at Sealite (http://www.sealite.com.au/).  But it's part time (a long weekend every weekend!), only 9 - 5 (I can see the sun!), 10 minutes from home and there's no Blackberry!!

It's weird not having proper responsibility and weird to go home Thursday night knowing I won't see responses to my emails for 4 days.  But nice to have a long weekend.... :-)

We all said a very tearful goodbye to Sally and David last Monday (28th March).  We had a fabulous time with them here and tried to convince them to stay longer!  The garden is now looking a 1000 times better thanks to all David's work and the house is now looking shambolic again without Sally's help!  But we still have Sally's home cooked meals in the freezer for frantic, unplanned evening meals in the coming weeks (guaranteed!)

I feel as though I've got to know the Peninsula better, plus a bit of the Yarra Valley with the touring about we did - Flinders, Pt Leo and Yering Station in the Yarra Valley being some of the favourite places we visited.  Sandy Point was also fabulous - thanks Judith and Julian!  The beach there is superb, but don't tell anyone about it....

Last Saturday we bowed to Community Advertising pressure and attended the Tooradin Truck and Tractor Pull (not my idea!!!!).  Wow, what a display of interesting people shall we say.  Some interesting haircuts, outfits and girth sizes.....  Shiny trucks for Fraser to see and er, not much else.  We were too early for the "Pulling" and the motorcross stunt man had a crash on the first jump!!  But Fraser saw a helicopter which looked alot like Harold the Helicopter (Thomas the Tank Engine's friend - don't you know!!!), so that was a highlight for a small boy.

Tomorrow Fraser and I are going to visit Olivia, Stuart, Claudia and Alexander for the (long!!!) weekend.  Fraser is very excited about going on a plane.

and.... I've just written a snooty letter to "Civic Compliance Victoria" telling them that I won't be paying my latest speeding fine (the third one!!) until they sort out the "hoon drivers" - young people who zoom about making lots of noise and screeching tyres (do I sound old??)  Anyone care to rate my chances of getting off???  I'm going for 6 out of 10.....

So tardy

Hello all..... I have an excuse for being so tardy in my updates.  We now have a wonderful newly sanded floor!!! And wait for it, new tiles on the kitchen floor, ta-dah!!  No?  Not a good enough excuse?

OK, I've been doing cup-cakes.... Tooradin's March market was last weekend and I made a 3 figure sum profit (before payment to myself....)  I won't tell you how much as I maybe robbed it was so much money..... ahem.  Lots of fun and this time we didn't have to work so hard to sell them, so the word must have got around....

I've also been doing Food Handler and Food Safety Supervisor courses, so I can now take up that job I've been coveting at the Delicatessen counter at Coles or Waitrose (strike out depending on your country of residence...).  Seriously, I require it to have my kitchen registered and it's been interesting to find out that one must wash ones hands after changing a babies nappy and keep your Bain Marie at above 60 degrees at all times. (Actually I didn't know the latter one and I now go into shops and try and work out how hot their display cabinet it before I order something from it!!)

Enough frivolity and creativity.  On Tuesday I start my 3 days a week back in the serious world of accounting at Sealite in Somerville, check out sealite.com.au.  I'll be paid about 1/4 of what I was paid in London, but I have a commute of 10 minutes, a company which actually produces something rather than sells speculation and I only have to work 9 to 5!  All good really.

Mike's still enjoying being a cow hand and is getting fully versed with the lingo of mastitis, heifers and cell count.  He's taking Sunday off to go to the Grand Prix with his dad so will swap the serenity of the country for the roar of the cars. 

Sally and David leave us on Monday night (sniff, sniff, sob!)  We'll miss them lots, but we've had a great time with them here.  We've seen lots of the Mornington Peninsula and last week were on the Bass Coast at Sandy Point (thank you Judith and Julian!) enjoying the long beach and peaceful surrounds.  (Photos to come.)  David has also given the garden a severe pruning and clean up and it looks fabulous.  I've just got to keep it that way.....

Mike took his mum and dad to the MCG tonight to see the first game of the new AFL season and he's just rung to say they had a fabulous time.  The ground seemed virtually full on the TV and the crowd were in full voice so I'm guessing it was quite a spectacle, even if they didn't have an offside rule :-)

"Would you like that with pink or blue icing?"

Today was the day of the First-Farmer's-Market-Cupcake-Stall.  And it went quite well, as in, people bought them, some came back for seconds and in the end we had 4 left out of the original 200+ cupcakes.  I can't say I'll be purchasing a Mercedes on the proceeds, but I might be able to buy a new lippy.

I spent most of last week cooking and had 30 cupcakes coming out of the oven at a time.  Chaos!  Ah but then came the icing. I was feeling rather nervous about it all, me being an accountant and all that, so not really known for my colour and design inspirations.  But at about 11pm last night, I did have a moment of creative pleasure when the combinations of pastel shades in the newly iced cakes, were well complimented by the particular shade of toppings I added, ahem..... (did someone mention cashflow, Balance Sheet, Accounting Standards, hmmm....)

However, I must say that whilst my cakes tasted great and were rather attractive (if I may say so myself), it was mum who really made the sales happen as she marched out to the path at the front out our marquee and badgered people to "try a cupcake sample" and then effectively told them they now had to buy one (and mostly they did!), as only my mum can do :-)!!  It was a fun day and a I made a bit of money too (although the hourly rate KPI needs a bit of review...)

Mike's on an early shift tomorrow and is then off to Rupert's in downtown Melbourne for their "Record Club" evening... ask him....  I believe the cows are performing well, but are particularly good with their aim whilst pooing (again, do ask.) They're calving at the moment, so each day presents new challenges as the new heifers (first time calvers) come into the shed and jump about whilst being milked.  Fun for all the cowhands.

The puppies are getting bigger, much, much bigger in Tessa's case, but have not yet developed any sense of etiquette and are currently racing around the room as I type, taking little bites out of anything in their path.  Even a balloon bursting didn't really slow things down all that much, it simply meant they could chew it more easily!

The wettest summer

We've been very busy since the 11th January.... Went to the cricket on Sunday the 16th and Fraser cheered at all the right spots.  James (my nephew) also came along and I think he really enjoyed bantering with Mike about the old rivals.

Sally and David arrived on the 22nd January and in preparation for their visit we had a few things to finish off.....

The entire kitchen, eating area, living room and guest room (yes, we have one!) have been painted top to bottom (ok, so the bottom bit needs some touching up, but the Lamonds are very tall so I'm hoping they don't notice), there are new carpets in the bedrooms.  Mum came and helped which was fabulous and we had fun to boot (ever gone down to the supermarket with your mum with paint spots on her face??)

The garden had a bit of a spruce up, although the lawn mower purchased at Tooradin market conked out before I had time to complete the lawns (it was mower number 4 since we've been here.... another story!)  But David has been on the job and we now have a wonderful new ELECTRIC mower!  Can't wait to use it.  But it's raining..... you may have heard about a cyclone up north???  We're getting its tail.

I cleaned out the shed, built a sandpit for Fraser (it's only needed one repair job so far) and put up curtains.  I also bought us 2 port wine coloured tub chairs..... my sister winced when I told her about them, but they look fabulous.  Am going to put apple green cushions on them. :-)

It was wonderful to see Sally and David and we're having a fabulous time here with them.  We might not let them leave.  We all went to the tennis a week ago which was fun, we even took Fraser who was an angel. (This is in contrast to our day exactly a week later at Healesville Sanctuary where he was a monster!)

We've been to the beach twice, made lots of sandcastles and avoided getting sunburnt.  Had trips to the wine regions round Melbourne (Mornington Peninsula very expensive and very posh - Yarra Valley much better priced and still very nice).  The animals all performed whilst we were at Healesville - we saw koalas awake, an echidna came out of its burrow right in front of us, the kangaroos hopped about and a wombat was sunning himself in full view of the walkway.  The platypus enclosure was as fabulous as last year and we even saw a platypus munching on a yabby.  Fraser adored the animals and I swear the koala was laughing at him laughing at it.

David and Sally have been working hard in the garden and the back edge of the garden is now virtually clear, there are new plants in the ground complete with fancy netting to keep the possums at bay and the shed has been thoroughly re-organised.

Mike is having a great time on the farm, coming home each day smelling terrible and pretty filthy.  Soap is still in great demand so I'm not worried he's becoming impervious to the smell yet.... Today a cow went down with milk fever so he had a lesson in veterinary treatment.  I am working on him to do a post to the blog and as he has this weekend off, do watch this space.

The cows take it lying down

Mike's having lots of fun on the farm.  It's been raining here again (and we're thousands of miles from Rockhampton!!) and so it makes things rather slippery under foot at the dairy.  Two cows fell over and wouldn't get up again.  One in the laneway, so she could be helped up with the tractor, the other however fell over at the entrance of the dairy and blocked one side (there are 2 entrance areas for the cows to be milked) for the entire milking.... they're not light these animals.  Next morning she was still there, but with a bit of prodding she got up and wandered off!  Only to come back again later in the day and slip over in the very same place.  She's now in the naughty paddock (field), to think about her actions....

Back at the house, today with lots of help from mum, Geoff and Sue (a friend of their's who helped mum paint her own house) we painted the entire sitting room, kitchen and eating area.  It looks SO much better and I almost feel as though we're half way there making it feel more like our house rather than a shack we're camping in....  One more coat to go on....

Puppy update - we now have a sandpit at the corner of the porch area (it's a big porch) and the 2 puppies believe it was created for them exclusively to dig an enormous hole.  There is now sand EVERYWHERE!!!!  Including a rather large amount in the house..... the beach has come to us.

What we've been up to recently

New Year's Eve was a little low key for us this year, but we did have a lovely afternoon at the beach (see boyz in kit armed with shovels below - I maybe in trouble for uploading this photo, but I think you can see Mike's farm physique don't you?), followed by a lovely dinner under the stars at Rowena's caravan camping site, about 2 minutes walk from the beach.  I made cup cakes for pudding just to prove that I still had the ability to bake without making rock cakes....  They were pretty good - but I did use one of mum's recipes...., not sure I'll go back to Foodie's.....

Next New Year's Eve everyone's invited to Pearcedale for a party.

On Sunday we caught the steam train from Moorooduc (put that in Google Maps!) to Mornington and back again.  I now understand the speed the trains were travelling at in the Westerns and why a galloping horse could keep up with them whilst the rider did unlikely stunts.  But we all had a great time and Fraser still hasn't stopped talking about trains.

The puppies are growing up really quickly and have settled into life with us really well. Max has decided a collar is for lesser dogs though and runs off and hides anytime I put it on him.  So I've given that idea up and he just has it on for walks - which he seems to love.  Very odd.  Tessa however, is very bright and nothing phases her at all, she has also found a way to hitch a ride. 

Fraser adores the puppies and talks about them when he's taking a break from trains. This is a "puppy hug" - around the throat.  Tessa has developed a good "help me" look when this happens, but she is mad enough to come back for more.

Today Fraser and I went to Cranbourne for the day (it's a bit like Croydon) whilst Mike's ute was fixed.  We found a Rotary sponsored park which had a brilliant playground (yay for international secret handshake organisations) and Judy joined us for most of the day.  It was marvellous to see her and we had a good catch up in between entertaining Fraser!  Tomorrow we'll be in the garden in the sunshine!!! Ahhhh.