Monday, July 27, 2009

It's no fun

All 6 of us are home with various levels of sickness. From the common cold to chest infection and bronchitis.

We all visited the doctor yesterday. How often does a doctor have an entire family of 6 lob in their office?

Hopefully we're all on the mend now.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Illness

Patrick is on his 4th day off school in a row. He hasn't attended all week. I don't feel too good either, but considering I work from home and don't need to go into an office where I would potentially infect everybody else, I'll keep on working.

It's the bloody dry cough during the night that does you in. Bad, broken sleep is the worst. Damn viruses! Damn you!

Hopefully we'll be on the mend soon. Lily, and to a lesser extent Owen, are also showing symptoms. It's that time of year :(

Monday, July 20, 2009

Heathcote

Saturday morning saw Patrick and I head to Patrick's soccer match. The Sherbrooke Rangers U11 Rockets remain undefeated after a 2-0 result against North Blackburn Jedi's.

After the match Patrick and I headed Heathcote to visit Wild Duck Creek Estate. This was the annual open weekend where mailing list customers can turn up, taste the fruits of David and Liam Anderson's labours and pick up their order.

The 2007 vintage was tiny due to environmental factors. The upside is that the fruit that did manage to get into the bottle is actually quite intense.

As always it was a great experience to taste new release WDC wines and catch up with David and Liam. Having a cellar door that is open only weekend a year seems quite counter productive, but it works very well for WDC.

And apparently the 2009 vintage will see a return to more realistic cropping levels and hence more wine of offer for customers. The 2007 vintage saw allocations slashed for most wines and some wines not even produced.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Last piece of the puzzle

As we've been rearranging the lounge room and making the place a bit more comfortable, we decided that a nice lowline entertainment unit would set the lounge room just beautifully.

Well, Karen ordered it and it arrived yesterday. Because our lounge room is quite large and open plan, the unit was planned to go up against thefar wall (for those that know our lounge room). Well the plan was OK - all except for getting the 3 metre (10 feet) unit into the house!

I had to quickly remove the picket fence/railing from our front verandah to allow access through the front door. The 2 delivery guys that turned up were honestly the oldest, un-muscliest, un-delivery type guys you could imagine and gave Karen all sorts of reasons why it couldn't be taken into house any other way - hence I had to do a bit of ad hoc DIY. Luckily the railing went back up OK (albeit, temporarily). At least it's safe.

And the unit looks great in the room, Karen's very happy that it sets the room off nice and symmetrically. Who knew? The way to a woman's heart is via furniture symmetry!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Back home

We managed to make he trip home in one journey this time - with no break in Holbrook.

This was a decision made on the spur of the moment, as we cruised through the southern extremities of Sydney and beyond. We polled the kids, and those that could provide feedback were all for it, so we made for home.

An extra 6-8 days a year travelling and about $1000 p.a. in accommodation costs (not to mention the other incidentals incurred) makes for an expensives trip 3-4 times a year. The break is sometimes a good idea, but in my opinion it has so many drawbacks I'd prefer not to - as long as the rest of the family agree.

If I was the only one who wanted to make the trip in one go - I don't think I'd be too popular!

Anyway, we're home now and back in th groove.

Friday, July 10, 2009

So long Sydney

After a fortnight in Sydney, we're off home tomorrow.

With NSW and Vic school holidays totally out of kilter this time, it was a bit disappointing that we only got to catch up with Damien & Kellie & Co. once, but that's what happens when your State Government is adamant that the first term school holidays MUST encapsulate Easter! What's with that? Anyway...

The kids have seen two movies and been bowling as well as having been taken on many day trips to parks etc over the past fortnight. Patrick almost finished his (late) homework as well. You can't rush these things.

Now it's back to Upwey and school, pre-school, playgroup, etc. I hope our house is still standing after some pretty devastating winds going by the TV weather reports.

I should probably blog more often as well :p

And here's a few random family photos.